The former Florida and current Washington Wizards guard is one of eight players that have committed to join Team USA for the Tokyo Games.
Former Florida and current Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal will make his Olympic debut next month in Tokyo. The 27-year-old is one of eight players that has committed to be a part of the three-time defending gold medal-winning United States basketball squad.
Team USA so far:
Jayson Tatum Bam Adebayo Bradley Beal Kevin Durant Draymond Green Damian Lillard Devin Booker (if Suns aren't in the NBA Finals)
That's a pretty good start to a gold medal squad in my book!
In addition to the six players joining Beal that the above tweet lists, Brooklyn Nets guard James Harden also committed to play for Team USA in the Olympics.
Beal is coming off a season in which he reached his career-high in points per game with 31.3. He also averaged 4.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds, and he was a member of the All-Star team for the third time in his career. The Wizards made the playoffs, but despite Beal averaging 30 points and 6.4 rebounds during the postseason (both career marks), Washington was bounced in five games by the Philadelphia 76ers.
Though this will be his first time representing Team USA at the Olympics, it’s not the first time Beal has participated in international competition. While in high school, he was a member of the U.S. national team at the FIBA Americas Championship in 2009 and at the World Championship the following year.
Now, Beal will make his debut on the international stage as a part of the team that will surely be heavily favored to take home the gold medal for the fourth games in a row.
Garcia joins Martin Kaymer, Louis Oosthuizen and Dustin Johnson in declining spots for the Olympics.
Major champions Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer and Louis Oosthuizen joined Masters and U.S. Open winner Dustin Johnson in declining playing spots in the men’s golf competition in next month’s Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The field of 60 was finalized Tuesday; the replacement list was also determined.
The men’s competition will be held July 29-August 1 at Kasumigaseki Country Club in Japan. The women’s competition is August 4-7 at the same locale.
Representing the U.S. will be Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau. Johnson said in March he would not be playing if he earned one of the USA’s four spots. Patrick Cantlay is the team’s first reserve.
“I’m going. I’m so excited. It’s going to be one of the best things of my life,” 2020 PGA champion Morikawa said after tying for fourth in the U.S. Open last Sunday. “To think back that I was an amateur two years ago, literally two years ago, and to be on this team and to be heading to Tokyo puts a smile on my face.”
Garcia, who played in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and tied for eighth, will not join world No. 1 and newly minted U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm in playing for Spain.
“This has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I love the Olympic Games, but my first priority (is) to represent Spain on the international stage in the Ryder Cup. My number one goal is to identify in the European team without having to wait for hopeful invitations. Representing Spain in the Olympic Games is an honor and an enormous responsibility that requires 100% of your mental effort,” Garcia said in a message he posted on social media.
He will be replaced on the team by Rafa Cabrera Bello, who tied for fifth in Rio.
South African and 2010 Open championship winner Oosthuizen, who finished runner-up in the U.S. Open, was replaced by Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Germany’s two-time major champion Kaymer was replaced by Hurley Long.
The field was restricted to the top 60 in the OWGR. The world’s top 15 players would be eligible, with a country limited to four players. After that, players will be eligible based on the world ranking, with a maximum of two eligible players from each country that does not already have two or more players among the top 15.
The medal winners from the Rio Olympics did not qualify – England’s Justin Rose (gold medal), Sweden’s Henrik Stenson (silver) and USA’s Matt Kuchar (bronze).
Former Ohio State sprinter Christina Clemons has made the U.S. Olympic team by finishing third in the 100M hurdles Sunday night.
It’s been a long time coming, but former Ohio State sprinter Christina (Manning) Clemons has made her first U.S. Olympic team. She qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 100m hurdles late Sunday evening at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in Eugene, Oregon with a third-place finish.
In most events, a top-three finish is necessary to make the Olympic squad, and Clemons did it by barely nipping fourth-place finisher Gabbi Cunningham by a mere .005 seconds. Keni Harrison was first in the 100m hurdles in 12.47, with Brianna McNeal second at 12.51. Clemons’ time of 12.53 was the same as Cunningham’s, but she was ruled the winner with the extension to the one-thousandth place.
“I’ve been going after this team since 2012,” Clemons told NBC’s Lewis Johnson following after the race. “I ruptured my Achilles in 2013. I wasn’t healthy enough in 2016. We had to wait a whole year in 2020. And now here I’ve been looked over, I’ve been counted out, but when God is with you, it doesn’t matter. I’m just so happy!”
Ohio State track & field has a U.S. Olympian. Christina (Manning) Clemons, one of the great sprinters/hurdlers in Ohio State history, qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 100 hurdles late Sunday evening at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trialshttps://t.co/12tPF5T8lu
At Ohio State, Clemons was an 11-time All-American, a 10-time Big Ten champion, and won two NCAA titles as a senior in 2012: the 60m hurdles indoors and the 100m hurdles outdoors. She still holds three Ohio State individual records: the 60m dash (7.23), 60m hurdles (7.91), and the 100m hurdles (12.68). She was a four-time Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year and was the 2012 Big Ten Conference Female Athlete of the Year.
Now, it’s off to Tokyo to fulfill a lifelong dream, and all of Buckeye Nation wishes her well.
It’s been a long time coming, but former Ohio State sprinter Christina (Manning) Clemons has made her first U.S. Olympic team. She qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 100m hurdles late Sunday evening at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in Eugene, Oregon with a third-place finish.
In most events, a top-three finish is necessary to make the Olympic squad, and Clemons did it by barely nipping fourth-place finisher Gabbi Cunningham by a mere .005 seconds. Keni Harrison was first in the 100m hurdles in 12.47, with Brianna McNeal second at 12.51. Clemons’ time of 12.53 was the same as Cunningham’s, but she was ruled the winner with the extension to the one-thousandth place.
“I’ve been going after this team since 2012,” Clemons told NBC’s Lewis Johnson following after the race. “I ruptured my Achilles in 2013. I wasn’t healthy enough in 2016. We had to wait a whole year in 2020. And now here I’ve been looked over, I’ve been counted out, but when God is with you, it doesn’t matter. I’m just so happy!”
Ohio State track & field has a U.S. Olympian. Christina (Manning) Clemons, one of the great sprinters/hurdlers in Ohio State history, qualified for the Tokyo Olympics in the 100 hurdles late Sunday evening at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trialshttps://t.co/12tPF5T8lu
At Ohio State, Clemons was an 11-time All-American, a 10-time Big Ten champion, and won two NCAA titles as a senior in 2012: the 60m hurdles indoors and the 100m hurdles outdoors. She still holds three Ohio State individual records: the 60m dash (7.23), 60m hurdles (7.91), and the 100m hurdles (12.68). She was a four-time Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year and was the 2012 Big Ten Conference Female Athlete of the Year.
Now, it’s off to Tokyo to fulfill a lifelong dream, and all of Buckeye Nation wishes her well.
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Kevin Durant is expected to suit up for Team USA later this summer.
Fresh off an epic playoff run in which he staked his claim as the best player in the world, Nets superstar Kevin Durant is expected to commit to playing for Team USA for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics this summer.
Durant has already won gold with the team in the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Brazil Olympics. If he manages to win gold again this year, this will make it his third Gold medal of his career.
Durant averaged 34.3 PPG, 9.3 RPG and 4.4 APG in the playoffs on 51 percent shooting from the field, his highest scoring totals in the postseason ever.
Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant is expected to commit to Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics this summer, sources tell me and @anthonyVslater. Durant averaged 34.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.4 assists over 12 games this postseason.
Los Angeles Lakers center Marc Gasol could represent Spain at the Tokyo Olympics.
With the Tokyo Olympics about a month away from starting, international basketball teams are sorting out rosters for who will represent their country on the big stage.
For Spain’s National Basketball Team, 18 players have been selected for the preliminary roster.
Among the selections is Los Angeles Lakers center Marc Gasol, who has represented Spain in previous Olympics.
Gasol played for Spain at the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, where he helped the team to a silver medal on both occasions.
Ryan Lochte’s historic swimming career will likely come to an end. The 36-year-old swimmer failed to qualify for the Olympics this summer.
Former Florida swimmer Ryan Lochte had the unfortunate luck that he shined and competed in the same time period as one of the best to ever do it, Michael Phelps. His arch-rival finally retired after the Rio 2016 Olympics where he finally had the chance to have the spotlight all to himself.
That went up in smoke after he finished seventh on Friday in the 200-meter individually medley final at the U.S. Olympic Trials, his strongest last chance to compete in a fifth Olympics games. The 36-year-old Lochte was attempting to become the oldest U.S. Olympic male swimmer in history.
He will always be remembered for his 12 Olympic medals, six for gold, but also the embarrassing international incident with Brazilian security guards at a gas station during the Rio Olympics. He spent five years trying to escape that shadow.
Lochte grew up from that incident and when he spent six weeks in rehab for alcohol addiction during a 14-month ban following an IV infusion of an illegal amount of a legal substance in May of 2018.
To train for this year’s Olympics, he reunited with his old coach at Florida Gregg Troy told The Athletic that he has noticed a more mature Lochte. He will most likely conclude his swimming career as the second-most decorated Olympic male swimmer behind Phelps.
After Lochte finished his final race in Omaha, Nebraska, he stepped out of the pool, hugged and congratulated the winner Michael Andrew.
“This ain’t the end of the road,” Lochte said, according to The Athletic. “There’s a lot more I want to accomplish in the sport of swimming, whether it’s in the pool or outside of the pool making swimming bigger — that’s my biggest goal. But I’m enjoying it. I’m having fun teaching these younger kids everything that I’ve learned and carrying the torch.”
While there is not much to talk about in the midweek, the main topic on the table is the one Gator who continues his Olympic Trials tear.
Welcome to a humpday edition of Gators News, and while there is not much to talk about as we are mired in the midweek, the main topic on the table is huge as one Gator continues his Olympic Trials tear. Let us take a look at what is happening in the world of Florida athletics.
While there is not much to talk about in the midweek, the main topic on the table is the one Gator who continues his Olympic Trials tear.
Welcome to a humpday edition of Gators News, and while there is not much to talk about as we are mired in the midweek, the main topic on the table is huge as one Gator continues his Olympic Trials tear. Let us take a look at what is happening in the world of Florida athletics.
“I worry, ‘Am I gonna be just as good?'” Simone Biles says in a new docuseries, Simone vs Herself.
The Simone Biles most of the world knows is a fearless, gravity-defying phenom who pushes her body and gymnastics to their limits. She’s a leader and advocate who’s captivating and charming on camera, even when she’s not satisfied with a (still probably victorious) performance.
But when documentarian Gotham Chopra asked her what story she wanted to tell, the answer, he said, was simple: An authentic one that reminds people she’s human, despite her apparent super powers.
In Simone vs Herself — a new seven-part docuseries on Facebook Watch directed by Chopra, who’s done similar projects with athletes like Tom Brady and Steph Curry — viewers get a raw, behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to be the greatest gymnast of all time. Her frustration and struggles, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, are on full display right beside her triumphs.
“She’s in a class by herself,” Chopra told For The Win about Biles, an executive producer for the series. “We see the products, we don’t necessarily see the process. … She’s training seven days a week, twice a day. Sundays are off — she practices once in the morning. And so there’s a lot of frustration. There’s a lot of mistakes. There’s a lot of, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ She’s pretty open about that.”
In interviews for the docuseries, Biles candidly shares her fears and self-doubt about the toll gymnastics is taking on her physically and mentally. At one point in a moment shot in 2020 early in the pandemic, she says: “If they cancel the Olympics, I’m quitting. I can’t do this any longer.”
After the Olympics were postponed to July 2021, she opens up with a vulnerable, seldom-seen side of her, worrying about training so hard for another year. Physically, she says she has no doubt she’ll be prepared with the help of her coaches, Cecile and Laurent Landi.
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“Mentally, on the other hand, I was really worried because I’m like getting older, getting tired, it’s getting harder to get up and go to the gym,” Biles says in the docuseries from September.
“I’m walking in like two minutes before practice starts. I’m like, ‘Who am I? This is so unlike me.’ But I seriously just can’t get up anymore. It’s a very different change, but I still go in there and get my work done.”
Obviously, she opted to push forward, believing the payoff in the Tokyo Games will be worth it. The Team USA Olympics trials are set for June 24-27, with Biles pretty much being a lock.
(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
“During that quarantine process, I got to really relish in my emotions for the first time in my life without any outside voices telling me that it was going to be OK or I can do it,” Biles says in the first episode.
“Deciding to still move forward and train for 2021 Olympics was only up to me, no outside voices. That’s what I was fighting for and training for. … Having to come back, you have to bring a whole new level, and then I worry, ‘Am I gonna be just as good?’ That’s my real fear, to see if I can get back to 2019 shape and ability. Can I do it again?”
Biles almost always looks calm and collected when she’s competing, but her poised look is far from the full story, Chopra noted. He said he was talking with Biles prior to her doing the Yurchenko double pike at the U.S. Classic, and she candidly explained her mental approach to the challenging vault.
“She was saying every time she’s about to start running down the runway for the vault, she’s afraid,” Chopra said. “I thought it was interesting because mostly when you talk to athletes, there’s a sense of fearlessness. They get in the zone, they talk about being in flow state, and there’s just no emotion. They’re just totally in the moment and focused on the process.
“And Simone and her candor, she’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m terrified. Every single time I do it, I’m envisioning the worst possible outcome up until the point I’m done with it.’ And there’s a level of honesty — I think it has a lot to do with her age also — that is pretty, pretty great.”
However, Simone vs Herself goes beyond the incredible heights she reaches the competition floor, Chopra said. She’s a regular and vocal critic of USA Gymnastics and said in an interview from April with the TODAY show that part of the reason she returned to gymnastics was to hold the governing body accountable because if she’s there, it can’t ignore her as she pushes for change within the sport.
The docuseries, Chopra said, delves into the Larry Nassar abuse scandal with Biles opening up about how she’s still processing being a survivor. She remains candid because she wants to tell her own backstory about her life and experiences, the director said. And in that, she addresses her mental health and being a survivor and advocate.
“You want to get where they really feel ownership over the stories,” Chopra said.
“She’s a survivor — she talked openly about that. She talked about her mental health and treatment and the good days and the bad days as an advocate,” he added. “Look how she’s continuing to win that battle off the mat, and I think that’s probably the thing that she’s most proud of — that she will continue and probably grow and evolve. And I think that’s the thing that she wants to communicate because that’s what this series is really about.”
Similar to Chopra’s projects with Brady and Curry, Biles’ story and docuseries is incomplete.
Of the seven total episodes, Facebook Watch will release the first five on Tuesdays leading up to the Summer Olympics. The remaining two will be based on what happens in Tokyo, Chopra said, and Biles could return to the states with five gold medals — which would be a record for an American woman in a single Games.
“She’s a superhero,” Chopra said. “Literally, she flies through the air. She does these things that no other human being on the planet has done in the history of her sport.
“But there’s also … this vulnerability and this humanness inside and underneath, and it’s pretty remarkable.”
