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‘A real honor’: How the Boston Triathlon brought supertri — and Olympic champion triathletes — to South Boston – The Boston Globe

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‘A real honor’: How the Boston Triathlon brought supertri — and Olympic champion triathletes — to South Boston – The Boston Globe


Yee will renew his battle with Olympic silver medalist Hayden Wilde of New Zealand, whom Yee hunted down in the final moments of the men’s individual triathlon in Paris to win gold. Boston is a bit like home turf for Yee, who has long been sponsored by Boston-based New Balance.

“I remember coming down my first time to the Lenox and staying outside the where the Boston Marathon finishes,” Yee said. “And over that week of the Boston Marathon, whilst I was here, just feeling that buzz and that energy about the area, and for me, I really kind of fell in love with this place a little bit, just the energy and how excited everyone was.

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“I’m excited that we’re finally able to race here.”

The supertri League is a global race series that features some of the world’s best athletes in a unique format that sees them complete three consecutive swim-bicycle-run sequences; instead of finishing their run and heading for a postrace meal, they’ll be heading straight back into the water.

“You have to think about so many different elements to the race,” Spivey said. “How you’re going to set your bike in transition, what gear you’re going to be in, if you’re going to rack your bike forwards or backwards, how many running shoes you’re going to have … It’s like all these little intricacies that you know you have to think about.”

The supertri race will serve as the closing act Sunday afternoon. The weekend starts with the kids race Saturday morning before the Olympic-distance triathlon — a 1.5-kilometer (0.93-mile) swim, a 35-kilometer (21.75-mile) bike ride, and a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) run — at 7 a.m. Sunday. That will be followed at 8:40 a.m. by the sprint-distance race, with each leg exactly half the distance of its Olympic-distance counterpart.

Athletes will complete the swim in the harbor at Carson Beach, bike up and down Day Boulevard through Pleasure Bay, and run through Moakley Park before finishing back at the beach.

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Then Sunday morning’s competitors will be able to relax with a drink and a bite to eat and watch some of the best triathletes in the world go head-to-head at 12:30 p.m.

“All of my athletes will be off the course, done and dusted, medals around their neck, beer in their hand, slice of pizza, feeling the glow of their own race,” race director Michael O’Neil said. “And then, boom, 12:30 hits, this just incredible spectator event with the world’s fastest athletes fresh off of Paris.”

“It’s really cool,” said Yee. “Triathlon’s always been a community-based sport; we’ve always focused on including everyone, no matter what level you are. People will be able to race their own race, have their own ambitions, their own goals, and then also be able to kind of appreciate what we’re doing as well.

“And from that point of view, hopefully we’ll be able to inspire some of the younger generation that have come and potentially tried the sport for the first time.”

O’Neil, once an agent in the sport before moving full-time into ownership and operation, had a longstanding connection with multiple-time triathlon world champion Chris McCormick, one of supertri’s founders.

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The Boston Triathlon wasn’t quite ready for that sort of venture yet, but bringing supertri to Boston seemed like a matter of when, not if.

“It was a little early in their development, and it was also an interesting growth period for the Boston Triathlon, and I felt like it would not have been good timing to bring it to Boston then,” O’Neil explained. “We’re at a place now where this would be a good fit for us.”

That didn’t mean it was an easy undertaking to add a top-level pro race to an event that O’Neil said was already “an eight-ring circus.” With a few dozen permits required, swim clinics, media, and road closures already to account for, O’Neil and co-director Will Thomas had to figure out how to stage supertri, too.

It helped that they caught some natural breaks. The looped nature of the course made the unusual transition from the run back to the swim possible. The road closures for the race meant they already had two large parking lots either side of the McCormack Bath House at Carson Beach at their disposal to add another ring to the circus, as O’Neil and Thomas coordinated operations with their supertri counterparts in Europe.

As it turns out, from thousands of miles away, they were already on the same page.

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“So we laid this out, and we had our first call with their ops guys and they had the whole thing mapped out just like we did, just from looking on Google Earth,” O’Neil said with a laugh. “And when we rolled [our plans] out, they started laughing, and they’re like, ‘This is going to be great.’ ”

So before supertri heads to Chicago, London, the south of France, and Saudi Arabia, it’ll start in South Boston.

“It’s a real honor,” O’Neil said. “There’s only five of these in the world, only two in the US, and this is the first time they’ve ever staged a race at an event that they don’t own. I think it’s a real testament to Boston being just a legendary sports town.”


Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.

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Boston, MA

Investigation underway after daylight shooting in Dorchester leaves person hospitalized – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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Investigation underway after daylight shooting in Dorchester leaves person hospitalized – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


BOSTON (WHDH) – Police are investigating a shooting in Dorchester on Saturday afternoon that left a person hospitalized, officials said.

Officers responding to a reported shooting in the area of 480 Quincy St. around 3 p.m. found a person suffering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, according to Boston police. The person was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for their injuries.

Ballistic evidence was recovered nearby in the area of Coleman Street.

No arrests have been made.

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No additional information was immediately available.

This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Boston hosts one of the oldest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations

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Boston hosts one of the oldest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations


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With St. Patrick’s Day only two weeks away, the city of Boston is preparing to host the biggest celebration of the holiday in all of Massachusetts – the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade.

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However, the Southie parade is not only one of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the country, but also one of the oldest. In fact, Boston first hosted a parade for St. Patrick’s Day in 1737, 39 years before the country itself was even formed. While the celebration has not happened every year since then, according to the date of establishment, Boston’s parade is the second-oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world.

Here’s a brief history of South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.

History of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade

According to the parade website, the city of Boston first hosted a St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 17, 1737. The celebration was “a gesture of solidarity among the city’s new Irish immigrants,” as “Boston’s Irish community joined together in festivities of their homeland to honor the memory of the Patron Saint of Ireland.”

In 1901, the parade moved to South Boston, a neighborhood with a large Irish population. Southie is also home to Dorchester Heights, where British troops evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776. Given the significance of both occasions to the city, Boston’s annual parade came to celebrate both St. Patrick’s Day and Irish heritage, as well as Evacuation Day and military service.

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The parade happens each year on the Sunday closest to St. Patrick’s Day, taking a break in 1994 and again in 2020-21.

What is the oldest St. Patrick’s Day celebration?

The oldest recorded celebration of St. Patrick’s Day took place in St. Augustine, Florida in 1600, with the city’s first parade following in 1601.

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According to University of South Florida history professor J. Michael Francis, “The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the United States did not occur in Boston or New York. Rather, those who first gathered to venerate St. Patrick and process through city streets included a blend of Spaniards, Africans, Native Americans, Portuguese, a French surgeon, a German fifer, and at least two Irishmen, who marched together in honor of the Irish saint.”

While St. Augustine still hosts a parade for the Irish holiday today, the oldest continuous St. Patrick’s Day Parade is in New York City, where there has been a parade every year since 1762.



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Andris Nelsons out as music director of Boston Symphony at end of 2026-27 season

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Andris Nelsons out as music director of Boston Symphony at end of 2026-27 season


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Boston will have the third vacancy among major U.S. orchestras.

Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra during a rehearsal for the traditional New Year’s concert at the golden hall of Vienna’s Musikverein, in Vienna, Austria, Monday, Dec. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File) AP

Andris Nelsons is being forced out as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2027 after 13 seasons.

The orchestra made an unusually blunt announcement Friday.

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“The decision to not renew his contract was made by the BSO’s board of trustees because, beyond our shared desire to ensure our orchestra continues to perform at the highest levels, the BSO and Andris Nelsons were not aligned on future vision,” the BSO said in a statement from its trustees and CEO Chad Smith.

A five-time Grammy award winner, the 47-year-old Nelsons is currently leading the Vienna Philharmonic on a U.S. tour and was to conduct the orchestra in Naples, Florida, on Friday night.

“While this is not the decision I anticipated or wanted, I am unwaveringly committed to you and to our work together,” Nelson wrote in a letter to BSO musicians and staff that was released by his management agency. “I understand the decision was not related to artistic standards, performances, or achievements during my tenure, and, therefore, my focus is straightforward: to protect the music, support the orchestra’s stability, and continue to perform with the musicians of the BSO at the highest artistic level.”

Nelsons made his BSO debut in March 2011 at New York’s Carnegie Hall as a replacement for James Levine, who announced 10 days earlier he was stepping down as BSO music director at the end of the 2010-11 season because of poor health.

Nelson was announced as music director in May 2013 and given a five-year contract starting with the 2014-15 season. The orchestra announced contract extensions in 2015 and 2020, then in January 2024 said he was given an evergreen rolling contract. He was bestowed an added title of head of conducting at Tanglewood, the music and educational center that is the orchestra’s summer home.

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The last extension was announced a few months after Smith, who had been with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, started as the BSO’s chief executive.

Nelsons was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Britain from 2008-09 and has been chief conductor of Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in Germany since the 2017-18 season. He married soprano Kristine Opolais in 2011, and in 2018 they announced their divorce.

Boston will have the third vacancy among major U.S. orchestras. Gustavo Dudamel is leaving the Los Angeles Philharmonic this summer after 17 seasons to become music director of the New York Philharmonic and Franz Welser-Möst will depart the Cleveland Orchestra at the end of 2026-27 after 25 seasons.

In addition, Klaus Mäkelä takes over the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2027-28, when he also starts as chief conductor the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Netherlands.





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