Sports

Murky waters of Olympic triathlon make for picturesque but dicey races

Published

2 years ago

July 31, 2024

Murky waters of Olympic triathlon make for picturesque but dicey races

PARIS – The dawn rain slowed to a drizzle just before 8 a.m. Wednesday in Paris, just as 46 of the fittest women in the world trotted onto the Pont Alexandre III, descended a flight of stairs onto a floating dock and dove into the Seine, bacteria be damned.

After years of planning, construction of a $1.5 billion sewage retention tank system, months of jitters, and a final 24-hour delay as mother nature cleaned up the latest sewage overflow as best it could, this elite collection of Olympic distance triathletes did the thing that has grossed out pretty much everyone for 100 years.

Was the river clean? Let’s say clean enough, and leave it at that.

At 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Olympic organizers and representatives of a regional environmental agency, the City of Paris and the prefecture of the Ile-de-France region performed the test that the Seine has been failing since the weekend downpour that soaked the opening ceremony and sent untold gallons of fresh sewage into the urban waterway.

Unlike the previous three days, when organizers canceled two training swims and postponed the men’s race for 27 hours, this time the river passed the test. But, officials determined, with levels of E.Coli and enterococci under the threshold risk for bacteria, viruses and other diseases that health experts and the world governing bodies for triathlon and swimming have set for open-water competition.

Swimmers finally entered the Seine on Wednesday morning. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

And so, with the sound of a high-pitched bleep, they set off, thrashing through the murky gray-brown waters on a day when the more immediate hazards turned out to be the slick pavement that caused a series of spills as cyclists tried to avoid one another and navigate the tight turns of perhaps the most picturesque of urban courses.

The Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais loomed above the 1,500-meter swim. The triathletes cycled past the Musee D’Orsay and the Assemblee National. The Arc de Triomphe flashed within sight as they zipped onto the Champs-Elysées during the seven loops that comprised the 25-mile ride. And they hit many of the hot spots once more during the 6.2 mile run.

This was one of those moments organizers had dreamed of when they first designed the plan for these Games a decade ago – competition through the heart of Paris, a video postcard from one of the world’s most breathtaking cities.

And hopefully no one gets sickened from ingesting or dousing in that river water.

Taylor Knibb of the United States said she crashed in training over the weekend and had the cuts and scabs all over lower left leg to show for it. She debated for days whether to take antibiotics before going into the water. She opted not to.

She said she simply decided to not think about the pollution and just focus on the race. Struggling to swim upstream, she thought: “I just want to be done with this.”

Her teammate, Taylor Spivey said a real issue Tuesday was the current and swimming back upstream in the second part of the first leg. It was as strong a current as she has ever competed in, she said, since triathlons generally don’t take place in rivers.

“I felt like I was on a treadmill,” she said.

None of this came as a surprise to anyone who had anything to do with locating the race in the Seine. Olympic organizers, Paris officials, the leaders of World Triathlon, all of them wanted their competition at the center of the city and the Games themselves. The alternative likely would have been a lake far outside of town. No one fancied that.

Also, the Olympics often serve as a way to unleash spending on dream projects that might never get done ordinarily. Officials have been talking about making the Seine swimmable for more than 30 years. The sewage retention project became one of the legacies of the Games, something organizers could point to when asked whether going through all this trouble to host was worthwhile.

Next summer, three swimming areas in the Seine will open to the public. That is the plan anyway, along with three more races in the river before these Games finish.

To the racing: Flora Duffy of Bermuda, the defending Olympic champion, led a tight lead pack by a hair after the swim, the segment that is more about survival and trying to put some hurt on competitors than establishing a lead. The cycling leg brought some thinning, with Duffy sharing the work at the front with Maya Kingma of the Netherlands, Georgia Taylor-Brown of Britain and the hometown favorite, Cassandre Beaugrand of France.

Still the way triathlon has evolved, with more and more standout runners migrating to the sport and learning to swim and cycle adequately enough to get to the final leg, this race was always going to come down to the run. After 82 minutes, Julie Derron of Switzerland slipped on her running shoes and led the race into its final segment.

Beaugrand runs to victory at Pont Alexandre III. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Spivey, of the United States, was the first of the contenders to slip off the back of the pack. Duffy, who needed to push the pack harder on the bike but wasn’t able to, and Taylor-Brown fell off by the end of the first loop, as a lead group of four separated from everyone else.

As it so often does, that made for some cruel Olympic math. Four contenders, three medals, with two Frenchwomen, Beaugrand and Emma Lombardi, hanging with Derron and Beth Potter of Britain, as legs all over the course began to turn to goo.

Derron ran without fear, sticking to the front on a still, thick morning with no headwind to worry about, her stride smooth, her shoulders steady. Beaugrand edged onto her shoulder with two miles left, with Potter and Lombardi trailing stubbornly behind as the bell sounded, signifying the final loop.

Then Beaugrand made her move. Coming in, one of the big questions other than the health of the river was whether the racing in front her home fans would inspire Beaugrand or whether the pressure would prove too heavy a burden.

In the final mile, with thousands of flags waving and the noise building in the heart of the city, Beaugrand left no doubt, surging, three then seven then 10 and 20 meters ahead and grabbing the tape at the finish and pulling it to her face before collapsing onto the carpet. Derron took the silver. Potter nabbed the bronze.

Alex Yee, right, runs out of the Seine toward the next leg of the race during his gold medal run. (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In the men’s race, Alex Yee of Britain won a brilliant and dramatic gold medal. The 26-year-old upgraded the silver he won in Tokyo three years ago to gold after surging clear of New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, coming back during the run (of course).

He becomes only the second British man to bring home individual triathlon gold after Alistair Brownlee did so in back-to-back Games in London and Rio de Janeiro. France’s Leo Bergere made it a multi-event medal double for the hosts.

Italy’s Alessio Crociani was first out after navigating the energy-sapping 1.5km section the best of the field before embarking on the six-lap, 40km bike, which was tight throughout. Wilde surged on the second lap of the 10km run, putting him in strong position for gold.

But in one of the most dramatic finishes of these Games so far, Yee roared back, passing Wilde on the entry to the Pont Alexandre III with only meters remaining before slowing to an almost walk to take the tape and Olympic glory.

“I have so much respect for Hayden and how much he made me dig there,” Yee said. “He was an amazing athlete and for me, almost two laps in I thought that silver was on the cards but I owed it to myself to give myself one last chance.”

While Tuesday was a triumph for organizers, the Seine has a long way to go.

Three more Olympic races are supposed to take place in the river – the mixed triathlon relay, and two long distance swimming races.

That is the stated program, at least. Another downpour could turn the triathlon into a duathlon and send the swim races out to the flat water canoe venue east of the city.

Less glamorous, perhaps. But less contaminated, too.

Ben Burrows contributed reporting.

(Top photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Sports

Eileen Gu reflects on decision to leave Team USA for China: ‘A lot of people just don’t understand’

Published

5 hours ago

March 3, 2026

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Eileen Gu reflects on decision to leave Team USA for China: ‘A lot of people just don’t understand’

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Eileen Gu released a statement on social media Monday, reflecting on her controversial decision to compete for Team China despite being born and raised in the U.S.

Gu’s statement tied the decision back to her passion for promoting women’s sports, and encouraging young girls to pursue sports.

“I gave my first speech on women in sports and title IX when I was 11 years old. I talked about being the only girl on my ski team, and, despite attending an all-girls’ school from Monday through Friday, becoming best friends with my teammates on the weekends through the common language of sport,” Gu wrote on Instagram.

Silver medalist Eileen Gu of China poses for photos after the awarding ceremony of the freestyle skiing women’s freeski big air event at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Livigno, Italy, Feb. 16, 2026. (Photo by Wang Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images) (Wang Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images)

“At the same time, I was made painfully aware of the lack of representation – at age 9, I felt that I was somehow representing all women every time I stepped in the terrain park. Landing tricks was about more than progression … it was about disproving the derisive implication of what it meant to ‘ski like a girl.’”

Gu went on to express gratitude for the one season in which she did compete for the U.S.

“When I was 15, I announced my decision to compete for China. At the time, I had spent one season on the US team, and had been lucky enough to meet my heroes in person. I am forever grateful for that season, and continue to maintain a close relationship with the team. I had spent every summer in China since I was 8 setting up summer camps on trampoline and dry slope for kids and adults, ranging from 7 to 47 years old, so I knew the industry was tiny. I felt like I knew everyone,” she added.

“Skiing for Team China meant the opportunity to uplift others through the universal culture of sport, and to introduce freeskiing to hundreds of millions of people who had never heard of it, especially with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics around the corner.”

Gu’s statement concluded by acknowledging that certain people “don’t understand” her decision to compete for China over the U.S., while insisting the choice maximized the impact she would have.

“I can look back now, at 22, and tell 12 year old Eileen that there are now terrain parks full of little girls, who will never doubt their place in the sport. I can tell 15 year old me that there are now millions of girls who have started skiing since then, in China and worldwide,” Gu wrote.

“A lot of people won’t understand or believe that I made a decision to create the greatest amount of positive impact on the world stage that I could, at this age, given my interests and passions. Three golds and six medals later, I can confidently say was once a dream is now a reality.”

Gu has become a target for global criticism this Olympics for her decision to represent China while remaining silent on the country’s alleged human rights abuses.

In an interview with Time magazine, Gu was asked her thoughts on China’s alleged persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

“I haven’t done the research. I don’t think it’s my business. I’m not going to make big claims on my social media,” Gu answered.

“I’m just more of a skeptic when it comes to data in general. … So, it’s not like I can read an article and be like, ‘Oh, well, this must be the truth.’ I need to have a ton of evidence. I need to maybe go to the place, maybe talk to 10 primary source people who are in a location and have experienced life there.

“Then I need to go see images. I need to listen to recordings. I need to think about how history affects it. Then I need to read books on how politics affects it. This is a lifelong search. It’s irresponsible to ask me to be the mouthpiece for any agenda.”

More controversy surrounding Gu erupted after The Wall Street Journal reported that Gu and another American-born athlete who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025.

Gu is the highest-paid Winter Olympics athlete in the world, making an estimated $23 million in 2025 alone due to partnerships with Chinese companies, including the Bank of China and western companies.

Her alignment with China prompted criticism from many Americans this Olympics, including Vice President J.D. Vance.

“I certainly think that someone who grew up in the United States of America who benefited from our education system, from the freedoms and liberties that makes this country a great place, I would hope they want to compete with the United States of America,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

Later, when Gu was asked if she feels “like a bit of a punching bag for a certain strand of American politics at the moment,” she said she does.

“I do,” she said. “So many athletes compete for a different country. … People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they just hate China. So, it’s not really about what they think it’s about.

“And, also, because I win. Like, if I wasn’t doing well, I think that they probably wouldn’t care as much, and that’s OK for me. People are entitled to their opinions.”

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Silver medalist Eileen Gu of China attends the awarding ceremony of the freestyle skiing women’s freeski big air event at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Livigno, Italy, Feb. 16, 2026. (Hongxiang/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Gu has claimed she was “physically assaulted” for the decision.

“The police were called. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had my dorm robbed,” Gu told The Athletic.

“I’ve gone through some things as a 22-year-old that I really think no one should ever have to endure, ever.”

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Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson’s reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to the enforcement of Title IX, and in legacy media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and ESPN.com.

Sports

Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Evans, Carl Lewis new members of California’s Hall of Fame

Published

6 hours ago

March 3, 2026

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Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Evans, Carl Lewis new members of California’s Hall of Fame

From Hollywood actors to Olympic athletes and politicians, California’s newest Hall of Fame class runs the gamut in talent and achievements.

Academy Award-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis and former governor/action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olympic champions Janet Evans and Carl Lewis, authors Riane Eisler and Terry McMillan, chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, groundbreaking ensemble Mariachi Reyne de Los Ángeles and former state Democratic leader John L. Burton all earned a spot into the assembly of distinct Californians, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday.

This class, the 19th in state history, will be formally enshrined during a ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento on March 19 as a “celebration of their contributions to civic life, creativity, and social progress,” according to Newsom’s office.

The inductees “have reshaped our culture and our communities. Resilient and innovative, these leaders and luminaries represent the best of the California spirit,” Newsom said in a statement.

To be inducted, candidates must have lived in California for at least five years and “have made achievements benefiting the state, nation and world,” according to the California Hall of Fame website. To date, 166 Californians have been selected by three governors since 2006.

Schwarzenegger, 78, served as the state’s 38th governor and last Republican head of state from 2003 to 2011. His renaissance man biography includes a career as a body builder, highlighted by his Mr. Universe titles, action film success, political stardom and even tabloid-fodder infidelity.

Curtis, 67, a Santa Monica native, is among Hollywood’s elite and teamed with Schwarzenegger in the action blockbuster “True Lies” in 1994. Her acting career dates to 1977, and she earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 2023 for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Evans, 54, is a four-time Olympic gold medal swimmer and Fullerton native who attended Placentia El Dorado High School, Stanford University and USC. She serves as chief athletic officer for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Lewis, 64, is considered by many one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. The track star won 10 medals, nine of them gold, in four Olympics.

Eisler, 88, and McMillan, 74, added multiple bestsellers to this Hall of Fame class.

Eisler’s critically acclaimed “The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future” examines roughly 20,000 years of partnership between men and women and male domination over the last 5,000 years. The futurist, cultural historian and Holocaust survivor who has degrees in sociology and law from UCLA said she was informed of the honor last year by Jennifer Siebel Newsom and recently was honored by the Austrian government with its Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class.

“I am very honored at this time in my life to be inducted into the California Hall of Fame,” Eisler wrote in an email. “I have worked tirelessly to help create a better world, and firmly believe that a new paradigm, a new way of looking at our world and our place in it, is crucial.”

McMillan has written a series of smash hits, including a couple that became major studio films in the ‘90s, “Waiting to Exhale” and “How Stella Got her Groove Back,” centered on Black women’s voices.

Matsuhisa, 76, know for his iconic Japanese restaurant Nobu, which has six locations in California, owns businesses across five continents.

Mariachi Reyna de Los Ángeles, founded in South El Monte, rewrote the rules of music, becoming the first all-woman mariachi ensemble that has entertained for more than three decades.

Burton, the former chair of the California Democratic Party who died last year at 92, boasted a political career that included time in the California State Assembly and Senate and the U.S. House.

“This year’s class embodies the very best of California — creativity, resilience and a spirit of community,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “These honorees remind us that innovation and courage flourish when people are lifted up by those around them.”

Sports

Former NFL Players Of Iranian Descent Speak Up For Freedom From Islamic Regime

Published

17 hours ago

March 3, 2026

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Former NFL Players Of Iranian Descent Speak Up For Freedom From Islamic Regime

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Ali Haji-Sheikh and Shar Pourdanesh share the fact they are retired NFL players living beyond the glow of the NFL spotlight. But they also share another distinction tying them to current events: They are part of the Iranian diaspora hoping for the downfall of the Islamic revolution.

They make up part of a small group of men who played in the NFL – along with David Bakhtiari, his brother Eric Bakhtiari and T.J. Housmandzadeh – who are decedents of Iranians.

Washington Redskins kicker Ali Haji-Sheikh (6) talks to reporters at Jack Murphy Stadium during media day prior to Super Bowl XXII against the Denver Broncos. San Diego, California, on Jan. 26, 1988.(Darr Beiser/USA TODAY Sports)

Haji-Sheikh: Self-Determination For Iranians

Haji-Sheikh, 65, played in the 1980s for the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons and Washington Redskins. He was a first-team All-Pro, made the Pro Bowl and was on the NFL All-Rookie team in 1983 for the Giants and, in his final season, won a Super Bowl XXII ring playing for the Washington Redskins and kicking six extra points in a 42-10 blowout of the Denver Broncos.

Now, Haji-Sheikh is the general manager at a Michigan Porsche-Audi dealership and is like the rest of us: Keeping up with world events when time permits.

Except the war the United States is currently waging against the Islamic Republic of Iran is kind of different because Haji-Sheikh’s dad emigrated from Iran to the United States in the 1950s and built a life here.

And his son would like to see freedom come to a country he’s never visited but has a kinship to.

“It’s a world event,” Haji-Sheikh said on Monday. “I am not a big fan of the Islamic revolution because I am not Islamic. I would like to see the people of Iran be able to determine their own future rather than it be determined by a few people. It would be nice to see them having a stable government where the people can actually decide how they want it to go.

Green Bay Packers kicker Al Del Greco (10) talks with New York Giants kicker Ali Haji-Sheikh (6) on Sept. 15, 1985, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers defeated the Giants 23-20.

Iranians Celebrating And Americans Protesting

Haji-Sheikh hasn’t taken to the streets of his native Michigan to celebrate a liberation that hasn’t fully manifested mere days after the American and Israeli bombing and elimination of the Ayatollah.

“I’m so far removed from that,” Haji-Sheikh said. “My mom is from Michigan and of Eastern European background. My dad is from Iran. But it’s like, he hasn’t been back since I was in eighth grade, so that’s a long time ago. That was when the Shah was still in power, mid-70s, ‘74 or ’75, because if he ever went back after that he never would have left. They would have held him, so there was no intention of going back.

“But if things change he might want to go, you never know.”

Despite being removed from any activism about what is happening in Iran Haji-Sheikh is an astute observer.

“My favorite thing I’m seeing right now on TV is the Iranians in America celebrating because there’s a chance, a glimpse, maybe a hope for freedom,” Haji-Sheikh said. “And you have these people in New York protesting. What are you protesting?”

Pourdanesh Thanks America, Israel

Pourdanesh retired from the NFL in 2000 after a seven-year career with the Redskins and Steelers. The six-foot-six and 312-pound offensive tackle was born in Tehran. He proudly tells people he was the NFL’s first Iranian-born player.

Pourdanesh is much more visible and open about his feelings about his country than others. And, bottom line, he loves that President Donald Trump is bombing the Islamic regime.

“This is a great day for all Iranians across the world,” Pourdanesh posted on his Instagram account on Saturday when the war began. “Thank you, President Trump, thank you to the nation of Israel. Thank you for everybody that has been standing up for my people, my brothers and sisters in Iran across the world. This is a great day.

“The infamous dictator is dead – the one person who has contributed to deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians and other people around the world, if not more. So, congratulations to my Iranian brothers and sisters. Now, go and take back the country.”

This message was not a one-off. Pourdanesh has been posting about what has been happening in Iran since January, when people in Iran took to the streets demanding liberty and the government’s thugs began killing them, with some estimates rising to 36,500 deaths.

Offensive lineman Shar Pourdanesh (68) of the Pittsburgh Steelers blocks against defensive lineman Jevon Kearse (90) of the Tennessee Titans during a game at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 24, 2000, in Pittsburgh. The Titans defeated the Steelers 23-20. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)

‘Islam Does Not Represent The Iranian People’

“[The] Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people,” Pourdanesh said in another post. “Islam does not represent the Iranian people. For almost 50 years, the Iranian people and our country of Iran has been taken hostage by a terrorist regime, and it’s time to take that regime down.”

Pourdanesh was not available for comment on Monday. I did speak to a handful of other Iranian-Americans on Monday. They didn’t play in the NFL, but their opinions are no less valuable than those of former NFL players.

And these people, some of them participating in rallies on behalf of a free Iran, do not understand the thinking of some Americans and mainstream media.

One complained that media that reports on reparations for black Americans based on slavery in the 1800s dismisses the Islamic takeover of the American Embassy in 1979 as an old grievance.

Another said his brother lives in England, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer immediately called the American and Israeli attacks on the Ayatollah’s regime “illegal” but, as the head of the Crown Prosecution Service took years to do the same of Muslim rape (grooming) gangs in the country.

(Starmer announced a national “statutory inquiry” in June 2025).

Offensive lineman Shar Pourdanesh of the Washington Redskins looks on from the sideline during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 7, 1997, in Pittsburgh. The Steelers defeated the Redskins 14-13. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)

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Pourdanesh Calls Out NFL Silence

And finally, Pourdanesh put the NFL on blast. He said in yet another post that during his career, the NFL asked him to honor black history, asked him to stand for women’s rights, asked him to fight for equality for those who cannot defend themselves.

“I did everything they asked, and now I ask the NFL this: Where are you now? Why haven’t we heard a single word out of the NFL? NFL, Commissioner Roger Goodell, all the NFL teams out there, all the players who say they stand for social justice, where are you now?

“Why haven’t we heard a single word out of you with regard to the people who have been killed as of today? The very values you claim to espouse are being trampled right now. Why haven’t we heard a single word?”

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