Nightengale: MLB Hits Astros with Historic Penalties in Cheating Scandal

MLB

By

Bob Nightengale

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January 13, 2020

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Nightengale: MLB Hits Astros with Historic Penalties in Cheating Scandal — Houston Astros manager AJ Hinch watches during batting practice before Game 1 of baseball's American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019, in Houston. Photo: AP Photo/Matt Slocum

By Bob Nightengale |

Major League Baseball dealt the most severe punishment against a team in its history Monday by suspending Houston Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch for a year for their role in using electronic equipment to steal signs, while fining the organization $5 million and stripping them of first- and second-round draft picks in 2020-2021.

The message sent was clear: Baseball will not permit cheating in baseball, and the next organization that uses illegal electronic equipment will be dealt even a harsher penalty.

Manfred is also barring Astros assistant GM Brandon Taubman from MLB for at least a year for his comments to female reporters regarding Roberto Osuna during the playoffs.

Iran’s only female Olympic medallist announces defection

By

Inside The Games

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January 13, 2020

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Iran’s only female Olympic medallist announces defection — Iran's only female Olympic medalist Kimia Alizadeh says she has defected from the country after criticising the regime's "hypocrisy, lies and injustice." Photo: Reuters

By Dan Palmer |

Iran’s only female Olympic medalist Kimia Alizadeh says she has defected from the country after criticizing the regime’s “hypocrisy, lies and injustice.”

The taekwondo star made history at Rio 2016 when, aged just 18, she captured bronze in the women’s under-57 kilograms division.

Her success generated many headlines but Alizadeh claimed Iranian authorities had since used her achievement for political gain.

She said they linked the Olympic medal to Iran’s law which makes wearing the hijab compulsory for women.

Iran has faced severe criticism from the west for alleged human rights abuses with Amnesty International claiming that the situation has “severely deteriorated.”

Women are said to face “entrenched discrimination.”

Alizadeh posted on Instagram in Farsi, alongside a black and white photograph of her at Rio 2016.

She said that she was in Europe, but had not received an offer to go there.

“Let me now freely introduce my censored identity,” she wrote.

“I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran.

“They took me wherever they wanted, whatever they said I wore.

“Every sentence they ordered I repeated.

“Whenever they saw fit, they confiscated me.

“They put my medals on the obligatory veil and attributed it to their management and tact.

“I didn’t care, none of us care about them, we are tools.

“Only those metal medals are important to buy political exploitation at whatever price they themselves have set.”

Alizadeh, who has two World Championship medals and won gold at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, said she faced comments such as “the virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs”.

She was selected to be Iran’s flagbearer at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang but withdrew from the event amid long-standing injury problems, which some feared would cause her retirement.

“My troubled spirit does not fit into your dirty economic channels and tight political lobbies,” she added.

“I have no other wish except for taekwondo, security and a happy and healthy life.

“Dear Iranian people, I did not want to climb the stairs of corruption and lies.

“No-one has invited me to Europe and I haven’t been given an offer.

“But I was suffering from the hardship of homesickness because I didn’t want to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery.

“This decision is even harder to win than the Olympic gold, but I remain the son of Iran wherever I am.”

Mahin Farhadizadeh, a deputy Iranian Sports Minister, said he had not read the Instagram post, according to the ISNA news agency and Reuters.

“As far as I know she always wanted to continue her studies in physiotherapy,” he said.

Alizadeh’s decision is the latest high-profile defection to hit Iran after judoka Saeid Mollaei joined the Mongolian team.

He was ordered to withdraw from the World Championships in Tokyo last year, where he was defending his under-81 kilograms title, to avoid the possibility of facing Israel’s Sagi Muki.

Threats were reportedly made to himself and his family and he initially sought asylum in Germany.

The news also comes at a time of high political tension in Iran following the killing of top general Qasem Soleimani in a strike ordered by American President Donald Trump.

More than 50 people died in a stampede at his funeral and 176 people were killed when the Iranian military, who fired back at American airbases in Iraq, mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane.

Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.

Academy Alumnus Mike Leach Named Mississippi State Head Football Coach

Football

By

Dr. Fred Cromartie

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January 9, 2020

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Academy Alumnus Mike Leach Named Mississippi State Head Football Coach — Mike Leach, watching the Cougars play Michigan State in the 2017 Holiday Bowl in San Diego, has accepted the head coaching position at Mississippi State. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times, file)

By Fred Cromartie, Ed.D. |

United States Sports Academy alumnus Mike Leach was announced Thursday as the new head football coach at Mississippi State University. The university’s athletic director John Cohen announced the hiring on Thurday afternoon, and now the spotlight will shine on Leach.

Named the Academy’s 2002 Alumnus of the Year, Leach is one of college football’s most innovative offensive minds. In his 18 years of coaching with stops at Texas Tech University and Washington State University (WSU) Leach has produced some of the nation’s top passing attacks. It has been reported that WSU for 3 out of the past 5 years was rated as the top passing program and never fell out of the top 10 nationally in passing. Additionally, at WSU he directed the program to a 55-47 record and appeared in 5 bowl games.

At Texas Tech Leach was a consistent winner with the Red Raiders for 10 seasons with an 84-43 record and 9 bowl appearances.

Coach Leach, the Academy family extends a hearty welcome to the SEC and the SEC West division. We look forward to watching you unleash your offensive innovations and aerial attack on the likes of Alabama, Auburn, LSU as well as others.

Having developed talent and winning teams at your previous coaching stops there is plenty of confidence that you will be focused on your new mission which is to be Ole Miss, win the Egg Bowl, and build a winning program that competes in bowl games. Go Bulldogs!!

Dr. Cromartie is the Director of Doctoral Studies at the United States Sports Academy.

The Future of Sport Education

By

Dr. Tomi Wahlstrom

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January 8, 2020

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The Future of Sport Education — Photo: http://blog.drstankovich.com/

By Dr. Tomi Wahlström |

Academia has changed a lot and many observers have noted that higher education is in a sort of a crisis. This may be debatable but it is certain that there are some significant challenges in the horizon and some of them have already arrived. There have been increasing numbers of college closings and overall enrollment rates have declined. The number of international students have plateaued. Meanwhile, tuition costs have continued to increase while student loan interest rates have increased. College has become unaffordable to many and ivy level schools have become even more elite. The value of the college degree itself has been debated as the number of college degreed individuals unemployed has increased. This is certainly worse for some majors than others, and especially liberal arts degrees have been a target of discussion. Therefore, many liberal arts schools have failed to make the case for their sustainable existence.

Universities and colleges offering degree programs in sport education are not an exception from the general norm. However, some special mission schools may be relatively better off than many liberal arts schools. This is partly because sport industry itself is healthy and growing. It is also becoming increasingly professional and the value of well-trained coaches and managers is being increasingly recognized. Education is valued and it is no longer sufficient enough to just move up within the industry by sticking around and hoping for the next logical promotion without some education. At the same time, it is not universally agreed that all coaches and sport managers should have college degrees. Many ask whether they really need the general education core courses to be successful. Do they need to learn history and humanities, for example, to be good at their jobs? The answers vary and a case can be made for the need of critical thinking that can be learned from taking a philosophy course, or some other courses. Certainly, a case could be made for the importance of biology and mathematics for coaches. They obviously need to understand biomechanics and some statistics. Strength and conditioning coaches especially tend to like their numbers and charts. Similarly, sport managers do need to prepare budgets and therefore need basic math skills. They also need to write emails and memos for which they need to take English courses. So, ultimately there is a lot to be gained from liberal arts education. However, it is hard to predict how well all of the knowledge gained from these liberal arts courses will generalize and transfer into sport careers.

There are many types of jobs in the world of sport. Many jobs do not require college degrees. A case could be made that a certificate, certification, or diploma would be sufficient to teach the proper skills and knowledge required for many, at least, entry level jobs. These micro-credentials can be cheaper and faster to earn, and they tend to be more practical in terms of the content of the courses. Perhaps this is where the future of sport education should be going. Stackable micro-credentials could be structured in a way that sport professionals would be able to gain the exact skills and knowledge they need when they need it. Ideally, these micro-credentials could then also be converted into degree credits in a way that these professionals could at some point pursue academic degrees if they see the need for them. In the face of the challenges that the institutions of higher education are experiencing, it may be those who manage to innovate a structured on-demand system of stackable micro-credentials that will ultimately succeed. This may not be the case with all industries and fields but it seems that it would be a suitable model for the world of sport. Higher education industry needs to be re-structured and made more affordable, and stackable micro-credentials could be at least a beginning of a solution.

Dr. Tomi Wahlström is Vice President of Academic Affairs at the United States Sports Academy.

Armour: NFL Needs to Change its Overtime Rules

NFL

By

Nancy Armour

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January 8, 2020

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Armour: NFL Needs to Change its Overtime Rules — Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph caught the winning touchdown over New Orleans Saints cornerback P.J. Williams in overtime. Photo: ELIZABETH FLORES – STAR TRIBUNE

By Nancy Armour |

Why not use one of those skills contests they do at the NFL scouting combine to break a tie? Or have each team designate a player for a speed round of rock, paper, scissors? Ooh, I know! Force offensive and defensive players to switch sides and see who can score.

Silly as all of these ideas are, the NFL’s current overtime format isn’t a whole lot better. About as fair, too.

For a second consecutive season, a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations is going home because of a coin flip. If Patrick Mahomes not being able to get his hands on the ball in overtime of last year’s AFC title game wasn’t enough to convince owners that the format needs to be changed, maybe seeing an aging Drew Brees rendered helpless will.

Games as riveting and rollicking as the Vikings-Saints contest on Sunday, or the Patriots-Chiefs matchup a year ago, should never be decided by what is essentially a crapshoot. The league’s best players shouldn’t be spectators when the game is on the line because of a half-baked rule.

“I think everybody wants a chance for guys to do what they do,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said last year. “I don’t really see the downside of having that.”

Who could?

Finding a tiebreaking format that is fair to everyone and won’t add too much time to games is a challenge, and nobody in football has found the right answer. But a proposal by the Chiefs last spring came the closest.

Rather than ending the game if a touchdown is scored on the first drive of overtime, both teams would get one possession. If the game remained tied after the initial possessions, then sudden death would take effect.

Everybody gets a chance. Everybody wins. Well, not everybody. But the Chiefs proposal would maintain the excitement and urgency of sudden death while ensuring that everyone was given a fair shot.

Unlike the current system, which often leads to abrupt ends of what had been exciting games, and a feeling that something has been left unfulfilled.

There wasn’t enough support for the Chiefs proposal, and it was tabled until this year. Commissioner Roger Goodell urged owners to consider changes at least for the playoffs, and seeing the 40-year-old Brees’ chances for another Super Bowl title dwindle might sway a few folks.

This is not meant as a shot at the Vikings. Or to take anything away from Kirk Cousins, who silenced the legion of critics who said he was incapable of winning a big game, first with a 43-yard strike to Adam Thielen and then a short fade to Kyle Rudolph for the game-winner.

Nor should it absolve Saints coach Sean Payton, and even Brees himself, for being too cautious in playing for overtime rather than the win.

But Minnesota is moving on largely because the Vikings are coin-flip wizards. Their biggest play Sunday afternoon came before overtime even started, when the team captains happened to guess correctly how the coin would fall.

Given there are only two options, this is no great feat or achievement. There is a 50-50 chance of being right.

Yet the lucky bounce gave the Vikings the ball, and Cousins took it from there. All Brees and the Saints offense could do was watch.

Those who have opposed changing the OT rules say teams have already had 60 minutes to win the game, and that a defense should be able to make a stop.

Yet a team that wins on a first-possession touchdown had those same 60 minutes and couldn’t win outright, either. And given how much the rules have tilted in recent years to benefit the offense, quarterbacks in particular, it’s a little simplistic to lay it all on a defense.

Brees and the Saints had their chances to win the game Sunday. That they didn’t get one more is unfair to them, and bad for the game.

This article was republished with permission from the original author and 2015 Ronald Reagan Media Award recipient, Nancy Armour, and the original publisher, USA Today. Follow columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.

Achieving Your Academic Goals in 2020 with Better Digital Management on the iPad

Education

By

U.S. Sports Academy

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January 7, 2020

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Achieving Your Academic Goals in 2020 with Better Digital Management on the iPad — Photo: https://blog.bridgeathletic.com/software-for-strength-coaches-tracking-athlete-performance

By Dr. Vandy Pacetti-Donelson |

Every so often I am asked by students, especially students who are new to academic research, “How do I organize my research and writing?” This usually begins with a discussion of the research process and finally moves on to a discussion about how the student is organizing “the stuff” of research—that is the papers, notes, articles, the paper trail of research.

For many years, I lived by a binder system for my research. Copies, highlighters, post it notes, and a trusty printer were the tools of my organization. In the past year, however, with the nagging of my college age children, I have moved to a more eco-friendly method of research. My research has moved to the cloud and with this move, I have made the iPad my device of choice for managing my research tasks and paper trail.

The iPad has come into its own as the best choice as a primary device for your college or university work. With carefully selected accessories, it may serve not only as a note-taking, presentation, and study device, but also a serious writing device as well. Even better, with certain accessories, it may serve as a lighter weight alternative to the laptop for the student or academic professional on the go.

There are a number of apps available for the iPad that provide you with better organization and productivity. Here are my favorites:

Task Management

Things 3 is a personal task management app that is designed to help you to keep track of activities and tasks. This app has a friendly, intuitive design with drag and drop gesturing. It has a wonderful feature in the “To do list”, called This Evening, which allows you to list tasks that you may have for the evening, bringing together your entire day in one place. Assignments, deadlines, and priorities can be cleverly color-coded with reminders set for more effective productivity.

Project Management

Trello is a project board style/notecard hyper-visual productivity app that really can help you organize your projects. Add tags and due dates, create work streams and share your boards with colleagues. This is especially effective for group project work. Attach documents to cards, create to-do lists, set deadlines, and more. If you are an index card/bulletin board junkie, this app will allow you to take the bulletin board to digital.

Citation Management

While there are many good citation management apps on the market, the mobile version of Zotero allows you to access and edit your Zotero Library. Zotero features a bookmarklet to save items to your Zotero library through your browser. While there are no official Zotero apps for mobile devices, there are some third party solutions with the most popular app being Papership. Manage your research well by keeping track of the research you have read and cite with good citation management.

Meaning Management

iAnnotate is the best app to read, mark up and share PDF, DOC, PPT, and image files on the iPad. This app offers you the convenience of writing on the printed page without the printed page. With the iPencil or other stylus, this app allows you to highlight or add comments and mark up, then export those highlights and comments. It also makes this information searchable. Gone are the folders and binders of printed pages. Your annotated documents may be stored in iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or Box and/or shared or sent to others.

Information Management—Note-Taking

I use two notetaking programs, One Note and Notability, but in two very different ways. One Note is used as a place to store static material that I may need to reference in the long term or for making note of theories and work that affect my research and largely, text drawn from various resources. Its familiar Microsoft interface is friendly and the notebook approach for organizing speaks to our familiarity with organizing paper notebooks. If you are new to this application; however, it does have a bit of a learning curve for a newbie.

Notability, on the other hand, with its clean and modern design with infinite scrolling in a note is intuitive for the beginners and perfect for handwritten notes. Making use of the iPencil or some other paired stylus, this app converts handwriting to text very well and has a quicker and easier erasing tool. It has typing features and supports outlines and checklists and a search tool for finding information within your notes. There is an option to record audio with a note and the notes menu is gestured from the left side of the screen giving you more writing space. With multi-document view with a split screen and the ability to import custom paper templates as some of the other options, this app is a wonderful handwriting notetaking application.

Document Management

Finally, all of my writing is currently stored in two Cloud solutions for organizational purposes as well. I use One Drive to store all of my scholarly writing and Google Drive for personal writing and career documents. Over time my scholarly writing has taken various twists and turns and using the familiar Microsoft interface and folder system of OneDrive has made organizing my documents a snap. When I am on the go and want to work on a document, I am able to do so with the Office 365 platform.

Since I am using Gmail as a personal email account and need a place to save personal documents, Google Drive serves as the home of my personal and career filing cabinet. Bills, tax information, one of my children’s high school assignments, vacation lists, my transcripts, curriculum vitae, etc. all can be found here. I feel more organized keeping these items separate from my scholarly writing.

With the iPad, these apps and digital textbooks and materials, the loaded backpack of the past is gone. My iPad is tucked away in my shoulder bag and ready to come out at any time for my scholarly writing projects.

Dr. Vandy Pacetti-Donelson is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Library/Archivist at the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Ala.

Vote Now for the Academy’s 2019 Athlete of the Year Awards

By

Subscriber_Mann-aaf

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January 7, 2020

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Vote Now for the Academy’s 2019 Athlete of the Year Awards — USSA graphic

By United States Sports Academy |

The United States Sports Academy is kicking off 2020 with one of the most competitive ballots ever for its annual Male and Female Athletes of the Year program. Voting is now open for the coveted award, which is part of the Academy’s Awards of Sport program that annually recognizes the top male and female athletes in the world.

The ballot is open for voting here until 5 p.m. Central time on Friday, 17 January 2020. This year’s ballot includes 12 men and 12 women from 10 countries.

Nominees for Male Athlete of the Year include: Johannes Thingnes Boe, biathlon, Norway; Joe Burrow, football, United States; Nathan Chen, figure skating, United States; Caeleb Dressel, swimming, United States; Eliud Kipchoge, marathon, Kenya; Kawhi Leonard, basketball, United States; Noah Lyles, track and field, United States; Lionel Messi, football (soccer), Argentina; Rafael Nadal, tennis, Spain; Ryan O’Reilly, hockey, Canada; Stephen Strasburg, baseball, United States; and Tiger Woods, golf, United States.

Nominees for Female Athlete of the Year include: Ashleigh Barty, tennis, Australia; Simone Biles, gymnastics, United States; Brittany Bowe, speed skating, United States; Elena Delle Donne, basketball, United States; Sifan Hassan, athletics, the Netherlands; Jin Young Ko, golf, South Korea; Brigid Kosgei, athletics, Kenya; Dalilah Muhammad, athletics, United States; Megan Rapinoe, football (soccer), United States; Mikaela Shiffrin, alpine skiing, United States; Kelly Sildaru, freestyle skiing, Estonia; and Regan Smith, swimming, United States.

VOTE NOW

Each month, the public is invited to participate in the Academy’s worldwide Athlete of the Month program by nominating athletes and then voting online during the first week of every month. The online votes are used to guide the Academy selection committee in choosing the male and female monthly winners, who then become eligible for selection to the prestigious Athlete of the Year ballot. A worldwide public vote on the annual ballot is used to guide the committee in making the final selection.

Monthly and annual winners are announced on the Academy’s website, social media, and in the monthly e-newsletter, The Sport Update, as well as released to sports media around the world.

The 2018 Athletes of the Year were Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu and American gymnast Simone Biles.

The Athlete of the Year Award is part of the United States Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport program, which each year serves as “A Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete.” The Academy presents the awards to pay tribute to those who have made significant contributions to sport, in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete in several different arenas of sport.

The awards honor exemplary achievement in coaching, all-around athletic performance, courage, humanitarian activity, fitness and media, among others. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Honorary Doctorates, Medallion Series, Distinguished Service Awards, Outstanding Athletes, and Alumni of the Year awards. This is the 36th year of the Academy’s Awards of Sport program.

The United States Sports Academy is an independent, non-profit, accredited, special mission sports university created to serve the nation and world with programs in instruction, research and service. The role of the Academy is to prepare men and women for careers in the profession of sports.

Founded in 1984, ASAMA is dedicated to the preservation of sports art, history, and literature. The ASAMA collection is composed of more than 1,800 works of sport art across a variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, assemblages, prints and photographs. The museum is open free to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. For more information, go to www.asama.org.

The Academy is based in Daphne, Ala. For more information, call (251) 626-3303 or visit www.ussa.edu.

Olympic Channel to Provide 300 Hours of Winter Youth Olympic Games Coverage

Olympics

By

Inside The Games

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January 7, 2020

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Olympic Channel to Provide 300 Hours of Winter Youth Olympic Games Coverage — Photo: Lausanne 2020

By Nancy Gillen |

The Olympic Channel is set to provide 300 hours of coverage of the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games, which begin on Thursday.

The global media platform’s live streaming of the event begins on Thursday (January 9) with the Opening Ceremony, at the Vaudoise Aréna.

A dedicated 24/7 streaming channel will then feature both live and tape-delayed event coverage, in addition to daily highlights shows.

Action will be available to watch live and on-demand on the Olympic Channel apps for mobile and connected TV devices as well.

The dedicated channel will run until the Closing Ceremony on January 22.

The Olympic Channel Live Show is also scheduled to be broadcast, showcasing news, trending stories, highlights and interviews in a round-up of the day’s events.

This will stream daily on Facebook, Twitter and the Olympic Channel website at 5.30pm CET.

Additional coverage can be found on the Olympic Channel podcast, which will feature an in-depth look at the stories and competition taking place in Lausanne, and social media pages.

A schedule, updated results and medal table will be on the Olympic Channel website throughout the event.

Around 1,880 athletes are expected to compete at Lausanne 2020 across eight sports.

In addition to traditional winter Olympic disciplines such as alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, luge, skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding and speed skating, the Games will also feature sports such as monobob bobsleigh and ski mountaineering.

Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.

Bach Warns Athletes Against Political Protests at Tokyo 2020

Politics

By

Inside The Games

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January 2, 2020

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Bach Warns Athletes Against Political Protests at Tokyo 2020 — A USOPC spokesperson confirmed fencer Race Imboden, pictured kneeling, and hammer thrower Gwen Berry had been reprimanded for their actions at the event in the Peruvian capital. Photo: Race Imboden

By Liam Morgan |

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has warned athletes against protesting in any form at Tokyo 2020, claiming the Games “must never be a platform to advance political or any other potentially divisive ends”.

In his New Year’s message, Bach urged athletes to respect their fellow competitors at Tokyo 2020 by refraining from political demonstrations.

The IOC President reiterated his opposition to the “growing politicization of sport”, which he claimed “leads to no result and in the end just deepens existing divisions”.

A similar sentiment was expressed during an Olympic Summit in Lausanne last month, although podium protests by athletes were not directly mentioned.

There were two protests in the space of 24 hours by American athletes at the 2019 Pan American Games, while Australia’s Mack Horton and Britain’s Duncan Scott refused to share the podium with China’s Sun Yang during the World Aquatics Championships.

The IOC’s Rule 50 states that “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas”.

“The Olympic Games are always a global platform for the athletes and their sporting performances,” Bach said.

“They are not, and must never be, a platform to advance political or any other potentially divisive ends.

“We stand firmly against the growing politicization of sport because only in this way can we accomplish our mission to unite the world in peaceful competition.

“As history has shown, such politicization of sport leads to no result and in the end just deepens existing divisions.”

Bach added: “Athletes have an essential role to play in respecting this political neutrality on the field of play.

“It is important to note in this regard that there is broad support and understanding among a great majority of athletes that the field of play and ceremonies should not become an arena for political statements or any kind of protests.

“Respecting one’s fellow athletes also means respecting their unique Olympic moment and not distracting from it with one’s own political views.”

IOC Athletes’ Commission chairperson Kirsty Coventry claimed the majority of athletes on a conference call in October rejected podium demonstrations as a legitimate place to stage a protest at the Olympics.

Others, however, said the debate was more nuanced than Coventry had conveyed, with some pointing out the difference in the podium protests which made headlines in 2019.

Fencer Race Imboden, an Olympic bronze medalist, knelt during the American national anthem and called for change in the United States, citing racism, gun control, mistreatment of immigrants and opposition to President Donald Trump.

Hammer thrower Gwen Berry later staged her own protest, raising her right fist at the conclusion of her medal ceremony.

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee placed both athletes on probation following the Games and warned others who make similar stands – including at Tokyo 2020 – will be given harsher punishments.

The stands taken by the American duo differed from the actions of Horton and Scott, who protested against Sun’s appearance at the World Championships because of his doping record.

The Chinese three-time Olympic champion served a three-month drugs ban in 2014 and is facing up to an eight-year suspension after one of his entourage was found to have smashed his blood vial during a row with testers in September 2018.

Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.

Former NBA Commissioner David Stern Dies at Age 77

NBA

By

Inside The Games

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January 2, 2020

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Former NBA Commissioner David Stern Dies at Age 77 — The NBA underwent big changes in David Stern’s 30 years as commissioner. Photo: Los Angeles Times

By Daniel Etchells |

Former National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner David Stern has died at the age of 77.

Stern had been in a serious condition after suffering a brain hemorrhage on December 12 and passed away in hospital in Manhattan yesterday, surrounded by his family.

He was the NBA’s longest-serving Commissioner, holding the job for 30 years from 1984 to 2014.

By the time he left his position, the league had grown to a more than $5 billion a year industry and NBA basketball had become arguably the world’s most popular sport after football.

Stern is survived by his wife Dianne and two sons, Andrew and Eric.

“Because of David, the NBA is a truly global brand – making him not only one of the greatest sports commissioners of all time but also one of the most influential business leaders of his generation,” Stern’s successor Adam Silver said in a statement.

“Every member of the NBA family is the beneficiary of David’s vision, generosity and inspiration.

“Our deepest condolences go out to David’s wife, Dianne, their sons, Andrew and Eric, and their extended family, and we share our grief with everyone whose life was touched by him.”

Born in 1942 in New York, Stern was a graduate of Rutgers University and Columbia Law School.

He had been the NBA’s outside counsel from 1966 to 1978 and spent two years as the NBA’s general counsel.

After serving as the NBA’s executive vice-president of business and legal affairs from 1980 to 1984, he took over from Larry O’Brien as Commissioner.

At that time, basketball attracted smaller television audiences and less money than other American sports such as baseball and American football.

During his time in the top job, Stern helped the NBA’s popularity to quickly surge with a focus on its star players, such as Hall of Famer Michael Jordan.

“Without David Stern, the NBA would not be what it is today,” Jordan was reported as saying by The Associated Press.

“He guided the league through turbulent times and grew the league into an international phenomenon, creating opportunities that few could have imagined before.”

Stern oversaw the birth of seven new franchises and the creation of the Women’s NBA, in 1997, and NBA Development League, now known as the NBA G League.

Under his leadership, nearly 150 international NBA games were played and the league was televised in more than 200 countries and territories.

“For 22 years, I had a courtside seat to watch David in action,” Silver added.

“He was a mentor and one of my dearest friends.

“We spent countless hours in the office, at arenas and on planes wherever the game would take us.

“Like every NBA legend, David had extraordinary talents, but with him it was always about the fundamentals – preparation, attention to detail, and hard work.

“David took over the NBA in 1984 with the league at a crossroads.

“But over the course of 30 years as Commissioner, he ushered in the modern global NBA.

“He launched ground-breaking media and marketing partnerships, digital assets and social responsibility programmes that have brought the game to billions of people around the world.”

Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.