Category: Sport

LIVIGNO, Italy — If you’ve been following freestyle skiing and snowboarding at the Winter Olympics, you’ve probably noticed the blue flag with a Union Jack in the upper lefthand corner and a Southern Cross on the right side popping up pretty frequently on the leaderboard.

And you may have wondered, “What’s Australia doing there? Do they even have snow Down Under?”

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It’s a reasonable question. Yes, Australia does have winter, a mountain range called the Australian Alps and even a handful of ski resorts in New South Wales and Victoria.

But generally, Australia is known on the international sporting stage for its swimmers, tennis players, golfers, basketball players, surfers and, of course, its beloved cricketeers and Australian Rules footballers.

In other words, it’s a summer sports country.

With Matt Graham’s bronze medal Sunday in men’s dual moguls, however, Australia has already clinched its best-ever Winter Olympics with five medals including golds in men’s moguls, women’s dual moguls and women’s snowboard cross. There’s a good chance the Aussies will add more hardware this week.

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And it’s not an accident.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Graham said. “This is my fourth Olympic Games. In Sochi [2014], we were a very young team and you could feel the potential at that point in time. Guys laid it out and showed us what was possible and a lot of us are still here. We were a very young and hungry team at that point in time and the success since then has bred the belief in the younger generation.”

It’s also the result of pinpointed effort and the kind of ingenuity that has lifted Australia’s athletes to prominence in a variety of other sports.

“We have our own ways of doing things, where it inspires one another, which I think is super special to have,” said Josie Baff, who won the gold in women’s snowboard cross.

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First, let’s rewind back to 1976. The Olympics were in transition from the fully amateur model to the more professionalized version we know today. In many ways, they were an extension of the arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union — and both superpowers treated them as such with the infrastructure they built to rack up medals.

At the Montreal Games that summer, Australia failed to win a gold medal for the first time since 1936. It was considered a national embarrassment, and it put a spotlight on how poorly organized the Aussies’ Olympic effort had been.

That led directly to a government-funded effort to launch the Australian Institute of Sport, which then-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser inaugurated in Canberra on Australia Day in 1981.

It is now considered among the best in the world at identifying and developing talent in a wide variety of Olympic sports, with world-class facilities and staff doing cutting-edge work in sports science. If there’s an Aussie athlete you know, odds are they spent time in the AIS program.

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Australia is now always a factor at the Summer Olympics. In Paris two years ago, they won a record 18 gold medals and 53 overall, which was only topped by the 58 they won as hosts in Sydney in 2000.

But the Winter Games are a different beast for Australia for obvious reasons: There isn’t that much winter. Though there are five major ski areas in the country, they are not as world-renowned as the slopes in New Zealand, for instance, because the elevation isn’t as high and the snowfall isn’t as consistent (climate change hasn’t helped).

There’s also the distance element. Even if an Australian athlete does find their way to a winter sports career, it’s a long way to Europe and North America where most of the World Cup events take place. So it’s a lot to ask from the start.

In 1998, the Australian Olympic Committee established the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia as kind of an offshoot of the AIS to boost hopes of winning medals, with most of the focus going to action sports (freeski and snowboarding) along with sliding and speed skating where they’d have a better chance to compete.

As top-ranked women’s moguls skier Jakara Anthony said after winning her gold medal in duals, it has opened the door to investment within the country to build an Olympic infrastructure at home.

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“Despite popular belief, we have some great training facilities in Australia,” she said. “And as we’ve had our prior successes, that’s allowed us to get more and more support to get more and more training facilities. We have fantastic mogul courses at Mt. Buller and Mt. Parisher. We have the new water ramp at the Geoff Henke training center [near Brisbane] and a lot of that is thanks to the continued support from the minister of sport for giving us more opportunities to produce more successful athletes.”

The AIS also had the foresight in 2011 to open a European base roughly 70 miles from Milan in Gavirate as part of a reciprocal training agreement with Italy. Close to the Swiss border and Lake Lugano, it also happens to be easily accessible to many of the areas where these Olympics are taking place, although at the time it opened Milan Cortina had not been awarded the Games.

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“It was a strategic vision because we knew that Australian athletes, one of the biggest troubles for them was the tyranny of distance of traveling,” Fiona de Jong, the director of that facility, told The Associated Press. “A 24-hour flight to Europe from Australia means that you can’t do that time and time again if you’re trying to compete at the highest level. It was our answer to our unique problem as a sporting country.”

It’s certainly paying off for the Aussies at the moment. And as word spreads back home, sparking more interest in these sports, that success is likely going to compound in the future.

“I’m really excited to see all these young kids coming through,” Anthony said. “They’ve got all these opportunities that were nowhere near what I had coming through when I was a kid. What they’re going to be able to do with that, I think we’re just going to see Australia reach new heights at every Games now. I hope so, anyway.”

MILAN — Say “speed skating” out loud. There, you just covered the difference between success and failure in the Olympics. Four years of training, four years of work, four years of hopes and dreams … and you might fall short by a third of a second.

Kristen Santos-Griswold has spent the past four years training for Monday morning. One of the world’s best short-track speed skaters, Santos-Griswold was leading the 1,000-meter race in Beijing when she was taken out on the final lap. She would go on to finish fourth, the most agonizing of all places in the Olympics.

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“The hardest part about this sport,” Santos-Griswold said recently, “is that kind of concept of, you can be the best, you can be the fastest, and things just don’t work out for you.”

She spent months after that 2022 heartbreak trying to figure out whether she wanted to commit another four years to training, knowing every minute of every day that it could all end in the literal blink of an eye.

“I had to really sit there and think, if in four years the same thing happens again, would that be worth it?” she said recently. “Obviously, I’m here. So I did decide that it would be.”

Monday morning, Santos-Griswold put that mindset to the test as she stood on the starting line for the 1000m, this time in the quarterfinals. She needed to finish first or second, or notch one of the fastest third-place times in the quarterfinals, to advance to the semis.

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The race began cleanly, a sharp contrast from her four-start 500m race a few days ago. And very quickly, Santos-Griswold climbed into first place … which was exactly where she didn’t want to be. Within a few laps, her pursuers caught her, and she couldn’t make up the ground.

“I just expected it to start a bit faster, and that I was going to sit in second or something,” she said a few minutes after the finish. “Then when it didn’t, it’s like, Alright, I’ve got to make a move and kind of pick it up a bit.”

She couldn’t, finishing in third place by 0.34 seconds. Worse, her time of 1:29.102 wasn’t fast enough to qualify her as a third-place finisher. And thus, her hopes for 1000m redemption ended right there in the quarterfinals.

This is the cruelty of short-track speed skating. Other Olympic sports have margins of victory measured in the tenths, hundredths, even thousandths of a second. But none of the athletes in those sports — skiing, biathlon, luge, and so on — have their competition literally entangled with them the way short-track speed skating does.

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Sure, there are rules. You can’t impede a skater while they’re attempting a pass, you can’t “brake-check” a fellow skater, you can’t throw your blades around. But beyond that, collisions can and do happen. And when you’re whipping around a sheet of ice at 30 miles an hour on millimeter-thick blades, well … there’s a reason why short tracks have massive pads encircling the rink. It’s a safe bet someone’s going to fly into them at high speed.

With all that tension and pressure, it’s a wonder short-track skaters aren’t puddles of anxiety. Even so, Santos-Griswold has been open about her nerves before races, and she spoke of that on Monday following the end of her 1000m event.

“I get very nervous and anxious before races, but I just try to take it one step at a time,” she said. “I try to go into it knowing that I’m as prepared as possible, but without the thought of, ‘I’ve sacrificed so much,’ and more like, ‘I’m here because I want to be here.’”

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Santos-Griswold has one individual race, the 1500m, remaining in her Milan Olympics … and, probably, her Olympic career as a whole. One more chance to cap off her comeback with a medal, even if she’s already validated it to herself.

“I think I’ll have to talk to my coaches and figure out maybe a different plan, and how I’m going to capitalize on the race at the end more,” she said. “You can never really predict what anyone’s going to do, so it’s just what it is.”

Maybe she’ll be more at ease with the randomness of this sport and the near-misses of her Olympics in the coming days and years. But in the moment, she sure sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

The best 3-point shooter in NBA history is ready to return to the 3-point contest … in 2027. Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry said Sunday that he wants to participate in the 3-point contest next season.

Curry made the announcement during an appearance on NBC. When asked whether he felt he needed to return to the competition after watching Damian Lillard win his third 3-point contest, Curry said, “One hundred percent.”

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He added, “I already scheduled it.” And said he was looking to make sure Lillard and Curry’s former teammate Klay Thompson took part in the festivities.

Curry was motivated by the fact that Lillard, who is recovering from Achillies surgery, joined an elite group with his third 3-point contest victory. Curry has won the event twice — in 2015 and 2021. It sounds like he wants to match Lillard, or at least see if he can take him down.

Thompson also has a 3-point contest win under his belt, in 2016.

Curry, the league’s all-time leader in 3-pointers made, is still playing at a high level 17 seasons into his career. The 37-year-old is averaging 27.2 points this season, his highest total since the 2022-23 NBA season.

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That performance was enough for Curry to be named a starter at the 2026 All-Star Game, but the Warriors’ star sat out of the event due to a knee injury.

Despite sitting out, Curry seemed to have a great time during the festivities. In addition to his announcement, Curry also hit a shot from the NBA Showtime desk and was one of the biggest cheerleaders during the various All-Star games Sunday.

Though Curry continues to play at a high level, the Warriors are once again fighting for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. Entering Monday, the team sits at 29-26, good for eighth place in the West.

MILAN — When Amber Glenn takes the ice this week for her short program, she’s expected to skate a graceful routine that will end with a series of spins. If she performs as expected, the spins — more than two dozen in all — will be a dramatic crescendo, the culmination of a meticulously prepared routine.

And many of the millions watching at home will wonder, How does she do that? Very quickly followed by, Hey, why isn’t she just throwing up on the ice right now from dizziness?

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The answer to both questions — the ability to spin, and the ability to stave off dizziness — is the same: practice. Lots and lots of practice.

Let’s start with a basic but neurologically complex question: What exactly is dizziness? You know it when you feel it, but what exactly is it?

“There are many causes of dizziness, but neurologically speaking, which I think is most relevant here, dizziness is caused by dysfunction of the vestibular system,” Dr. Lindsay J. Agostinelli, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Yahoo Sports in an email. “The vestibular system is an apparatus in our inner ears that detects head motion and rotation, sending signals to our brain to then turn our eyes in order to maintain balance and prevent dizziness as we move through space.”

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Skaters, like dancers, begin to prepare for spinning by focusing on a single spot in the distance as they spin, then turning their head quickly and relocating that point, Dr. Agostinelli notes. That allows them to quickly stabilize themselves and stave off dizziness.

But that method won’t exactly work on ice, when skaters are whipping around five or six times a second. The only way to solve that problem, Dr. Agostinelli suggests, is by repetition, breaking down your traditional dizzy reaction to spinning.

“Research studies have shown that figure skaters actually have a less reactive vestibular system, and when exposed to a ‘nauseogenic simulation’ that rotated/ spun them, they felt less motion sick compared to non-skaters,” Dr. Agostinelli says. “This is likely a result of their training which habituates their vestibular systems.”

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Fighting off dizziness is a mental battle that becomes a physical one. “I think initial training requires mental toughness to fight through the requisite dizziness,” Dr. Agostinelli says, “but the ability to perform at high speeds without dizziness is clearly a result of the physical training and desensitization process.”

So there you go. If you want to stay as level-headed as a skater, start spinning now. Carefully.

Nick Castellanos is turning the page on his time with the Philadelphia Phillies. The outfielder — who was signed by the San Diego Padres on Saturday — reflected on the ending of his Phillies tenure Sunday, saying he didn’t handle his outburst in Miami well.

While Castellanos overall stood by the way he approached things with the Phillies, he admitted the “Miami Incident” — in which he brought a beer into the dugout and berated coaches after being removed from a game in the eighth inning — could have been handled better.

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Castellanos said he “let the emotions get the best of me” in that moment, per CBSSports.com.

“I said I will learn from this,” Castellanos said. “I let the emotions get the best of me in the moment. [Going forward] possibly if I see things that frustrate me or I don’t believe are conducive to winning. [It’s about] not letting things just pile up over time so when I address it, it’s less emotional.”

That moment proved to be the beginning of the end for Castellanos in Philadelphia. While he spent the rest of the season with the team, it quickly found a replacement in the offseason, signing outfielder Adolis García.

With Castellanos out of a job, the Phillies looked for possible trade partners, but none materialized. Eventually, the team told the veteran outfielder to not report for spring training. Shortly after that, Castellanos was released by the Phillies. He quickly found another job with the Padres.

Castellanos, 33, will now look to rebuild his value after experiencing declining numbers in his final year in Philadelphia. He said he is glad to have another opportunity and is looking forward to competing with the Padres. When asked about his new club, Castellanos complimented the Padres while potentially taking one more shot at the Phillies on his way out, per ESPN.

“They don’t cut corners as far as what they do to prepare and win. And also, what reputation they have on how they treat their players and how they have their backs. Even if something goes a little bit awry, they still stand with them and they don’t deviate from their commitment to them as a person.”

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Castellanos will have to prove he has something left in the tank after hitting just .250/.294/.400 last season. He registered a -0.8bWAR in 2025, marking the second time since 2022 that he finished the season with negative WAR.

The Padres, however, aren’t on the hook for much if he falters. The team will pay the veteran the minimum this season, with the Phillies still paying Castellanos’ $20 million salary.

With the Padres, Castellanos is expected to serve as designated hitter, occasionally appear in the outfield and maybe mix in at first base, a position he has never played in the majors.

Finnish skier Elias Lajunen was knocked out cold after a crash on Sunday during the men’s big air skiing qualifiers in Milan-Cortina. Lajunen, 18, lay motionless after slamming his head, then was stretchered off.

After being attended to, Lajunen regained consciousness and gave the crowd a thumbs-up as medical staff tended to him. According to the Finnish Olympic Committee, all of Lajunen’s limbs were functioning.

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He attempted a multi-rotation aerial that went wrong on the final revolution. Big air rewards height, difficulty and clean execution, with a small margin for error.

Lajunen recently turned pro and was participating in his first Olympic Games. At the 2025 World Championships, he finished 31st in the men’s freeski slopestyle competition and 32nd in big air. His father, Samppa Lajunen, is a celebrated Finnish combined skier and a three-time Olympic champion in Nordic combined.

Heading into Run 2 of the men’s slalom Monday, Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath was one of the favorites. McGrath finished with the best time in Run 1, putting him in a strong spot to finish on the podium before the day was done.

Due to McGrath’s excellent performance in Run 1, he was the last skier to take the course in Run 2. Medaling seemed within his grasp, as no skier matched McGrath’s time from the first run of the day.

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But disaster struck before McGrath could really get going. McGrath had trouble with a gate early in his run. Realizing his shot at a medal was over, McGrath stopped trying to ski the course and chucked both of his poles as far as he could. He then took off both his skis and walked off the course.

McGrath walked off the course, over the catch fence and onto an adjacent trail where he laid down in the snow by himself. The broadcast captured McGrath laying on his back, occasionally putting his hands over his face to the side of the course.

With McGrath out of the event, Switzerland’s Loic Meillard wound up taking the gold. Austria’s Fabio Gstrein won silver and Norway’s Henrik Kristofferen took home the bronze.

It’s already been a difficult Olympics for McGrath, who announced his grandfather died on the same day as the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. McGrath penned an emotional tribute to his grandfather on social media, and said he would “give it my all for” his grandfather at the Olympics.

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McGrath took part in both team events last Monday, where Norway finished 12th. He also competed in the giant slalom, where he finished fifth. The slalom has typically been his best event. McGrath took silver in the event at the 2025 World Championships, and seemed poised for a similarly strong finish in the slalom Monday. The gates had other plans.

It was a particularly tough day for DNFs on the course. During Run 1, more than half the men’s field failed to finish. McGrath was the exception early, but the course got the better of him the second time out.

Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown had a brand event he was hosting shut down on Saturday night by Beverly Hills police over what they said was a permit issue.

But on Sunday, following the All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome in Southern California, Brown completely disputed a statement that Beverly Hills police released about the incident.

“I’m offended by Beverly Hills by the statement they put out, like we applied for something and didn’t get it, and we did it anyway [and] we were insubordinate,” Brown said, via ESPN. “I know how to follow the rules. I’m smart enough to follow the guidelines. It just seemed like somebody didn’t want whatever we had going on to go on because out of everybody that was doing something, it seemed like I was the only one that gets shut down.”

Brown had planned several events at a mansion in the Trousdale Estates neighborhood of Beverly Hills on Saturday, according to The Boston Globe, including a networking event and a panel discussion. But on Saturday night, police walked on stage at the panel to shut it down. At least seven police cars were parked outside to try and get the crowd of about 200 people to disperse.

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On Sunday, before the All-Star Game, the City of Beverly Hills released a statement saying that an “event permit had been applied for and denied” due to previous violations at the event address. Further specifics aren’t known.

“Despite the fact that the permit was denied, organizers still chose to proceed with inviting hundreds of guests knowing that it was not allowed to occur. BHPD responded and shut down the unpermitted event,” the city said, in part.

Brown said on Sunday that the event was being hosted at Oakley founder Jim Jannard’s house. Brown has a sponsorship with Oakley, and said the city’s statement about a permit “was not true.”

“We didn’t need a permit because the owner of the house, that was his space. We were family friends,” Brown said. “He opened up the festivities to us so we didn’t have to. We never applied for one. … I didn’t have to pay for the house or anything. They just opened it up. I had to pay for the build out, but it was hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted for an event that was supposed to be positive.”

Brown posted a video of his interaction with a Beverley Hills police officer on social media on Saturday, and said he felt like “we’re being targeted.”

Brown was asked directly whether he felt the move was racially motivated on Sunday night.

“All I’m going to say is that everybody else that did something in activation, [there] seemed to be no issues,” Brown said. “It was 7 p.m. It wasn’t 10 p.m., it wasn’t 11 p.m., it wasn’t [midnight]. [It was] 7 p.m. … We’re doing a panel. We’re doing stuff that’s positive. There was nobody that was inconvenienced. [We weren’t] blocking traffic.

“It’s All-Star weekend, it’s Saturday night and it’s 7 p.m. What are we talking about?”

As for Jannard, Brown said he was considering filing a lawsuit against the city. The incident, Brown said, meant “hundreds of thousands of dollars lost down the toilet.”

“The owner seemed like he was pretty upset,” Brown said. “He wants to file a lawsuit because it’s his house. They’ve done multiple events there and there’s never been an issue. He’s done four or five events even that week, he said, and it was never an issue.”

After a couple of rough years early in his tenure, A.J. Preller has built the San Diego Padres into a consistent contender. He was rewarded for those efforts Monday, agreeing to a long-term extension with the franchise, the team announced.

The finances and length of Preller’s contract were not disclosed. Unlike player contracts, front-office deals aren’t always made public.

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Preller called San Diego a special place and said in a statement that he is excited to bring a championship to the city.

“San Diego is a special place, and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made over the last decade while knowing there’s still more work to be done. I’m excited for the Padres’ future and fully committed to bringing a championship to our fans and this city.”

Prior to the extension, Preller was set to enter 2026 with one year left on his contract. When asked about his status Sunday, multiple Padres players showed support for the team’s general manager. Both Manny Machado and Michael King went to bat for Preller, with King saying he re-signed with the Padres due to Preller.

The Padres were always expected to work out a new deal with Preller, who was hired in 2014. In October, team CEO Erik Greupner said he was optimistic Preller would be the team’s general manager beyond the 2026 MLB season. It might have taken a few months to work out the particulars, but Greupner’s comments turned out to be accurate.

Preller engaged in a pretty lengthy rebuild upon taking over as GM. The Padres failed to make the playoffs in his first five seasons with the team. But the team made strides during that period, trading for Fernando Tatis Jr. and signing Machado to an 11-year, $350 million contract.

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Both moves helped the Padres get back into contention. Since 2020, the team has made the playoffs in four of six seasons. Making deep postseason runs in October, however, has proven difficult. The Padres advanced to the NLCS just once in those four chances, losing to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games in 2022.

During his tenure with the Padres, Preller has built a reputation as a general manager who is willing to make bold moves. In addition to signing Machado, he spent $280 million on shortstop Xander Bogaerts. He has also traded for Blake Snell and Juan Soto. Preller later traded Soto to the New York Yankees once it became clear the Padres wouldn’t be able to re-sign the outfielder.

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Compared to those moves, it was a relatively uneventful offseason for Preller and the Padres. The team’s biggest move was bringing King back, though recent additions such as Griffin Canning and Nick Castellanos could prove impactful.

The Padres could certainly use one more addition or two, as the team is projected to win 80.7 games this season, per Baseball Prospectus. That would put the Padres on the cusp of the postseason but not firmly in a playoff spot. Based on how Preller has approached previous seasons, the Padres can be confident he won’t sit idly by if the playoffs are within grasp as the season progresses.

The Miami Dolphins will reportedly release edge rusher Bradley Chubb, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. Last season, Chubb had 47 tackles, 8.5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles. He was able to play all 17 games after missing the 2024 season with a torn ACL.

The 29-year-old had been with the Dolphins since 2022, after being acquired from the Denver Broncos at the trade deadline for running back Chase Edmonds and a first-round pick. Chubb signed a five-year, $110 million extension with the Dolphins shortly after getting moved.

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Despite being under contract until 2027, Chubb was expected to be moved this offseason after the Dolphins did not move him at the trade deadline. After restructuring his contract last offseason, Chubb reportedly has a cap number of more than $31M for 2026.

Despite turning 30 in June, expect teams to be interested in the two-time Pro Bowler before the start of free agency. In his last three full seasons, Chubb has had at least eight sacks.

For the Dolphins, moving on from Chubb continues to signal a rebuild. The Dolphins traded Jaelan Phillips before the trade deadline and Jalen Ramsey before the season. The team also hired Jeff Hafley as head coach and Jon-Eric Sullivan as general manager this offseason.

While the Dolphins have recently moved on from some of their defensive pieces, there are still questions surrounding what the team will do offensively. The Dolphins are expected to try to move quarterback Tua Tagovailoa after he got benched in favor of seventh-round rookie quarterback Quinn Ewers in Week 16.

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The Dolphins signed Tagovailoa to a four-year, $212.1 million extension in July 2024. They reportedly already owe him $54 million guaranteed in 2026, and another $3 million of Tagovailoa’s 2027 salary becomes guaranteed on the fifth day of the new league year, March 15.

Cutting Tagovailoa would leave a $99 million dead-money salary-cap charge, the largest in NFL history, while designating him as a post–June 1 cut would spread the money over two years.

Coming off a 7-10 season, expect the Dolphins to have more decisions to make.