Massachusetts
Here’s how Massachusetts Olympians have fared so far in 2024 Olympics
If the Bay State were its own country, the Republic of Massachusetts would currently be sitting 13th, tied with Spain and New Zealand.
That’s right, with the Olympics now in Week No. 2, Massachusetts has medals from nine events — four golds, a silver and four bronze. That’s more gold and more total medals than Sweden, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece and a whole lot of others.
It’s been a good games so far for Olympians with Massachusetts ties. More medals are likely on the way too with U.S. men’s basketball team which includes three Celtics, still set to compete.
For this list, someone had to live in Massachusetts now or in the past and be competing in the 2024 Olympics for Team USA. That includes going to college here and playing professional sports here.
Here’s who they are and how they’re doing:
Women’s Archery
Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez — The Brockton native finished ninth in the team event and 33rd as an individual.
Women’s cycling
* GOLD: Kristen Faulkner — In one of the most exciting finishes in the games, the former Harvard rower from Homer, Alaska put on a shocking burst of speed late in the road cycling event to win the gold medal.
Men’s Fencing
Eli Dershwitz — The Sherborn native and Harvard alum, finished seventh in team sabre and 17th individually.
Colin Heathcock —The Harvard freshman was eliminated in his first match in individual sabre.
Mitchell Saron — The Harvard alum from New Jersey was 14th in the individual competition and was part of the sabre team that finished seventh.
Women’s Fencing
* GOLD/SILVER: Lauren Scruggs — The Harvard senior will leave France with a gold medal from team foil and a silver as an individual.
Elizabeth Tartakovsky — Another Harvard product, this one from New Jersey was fifth in the team event and 18th by herself.
Women’s Field Hockey
Ally Hammel — Hammel, a Duxbury native, was a key member of the US field hockey team, that did not advance to the knockout stage of that sport’s event.
Men’s gymnastics
* Bronze: Frederick Richard — The charismatic Stoughton native played a huge role in helping the USA men’s gymnastics team secure a team bronze medal. He’ll have an excellent chance of being back in the Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles.
* Bronze (2): Stephen Nedoroscik — The pommel horse specialist emerged as one of the most popular people and stories in the Olympics as his performance to close out the team competition earned the Americans a bronze medal. He encored that with another bronze in the individual pommel horse competition.
Women’s Rowing
Margaret Hedeman, Regina Salmons and Olivia Coffey — Hedeman, a native of Concord, Methuen’s Salmons and Coffey a Harvard alum were all on the women’s eight that finished fifth.
Daisy Mazzio-Manson — The Wellesley native was on the women’s four crew that didn’t earn a medal.
Kristi Wagner — The 31-year-old native of Weston finished ninth in double sculls.
Men’s Rowing
* Gold: Liam Corrigan — The United States has won its first rowing Olympic gold medal in the men’s four class since 1960 with Corrigan, an Old Lyme, Connecticut native and Harvard alum in the second seat.
* Bronze: Henry Hollingsworth, Christian Tabash, Clark Dean, Pieter Quinton — Four locals were in the men’s eight boat that earned a bronze medal. Hollingsworth, a Dover native , and Tabash, Dean and Quinton all went to Harvard.
Jacob Plihal — The Northeastern alum finished 13th in single sculls.
Men’s Rugby
Madison Hughes — The Lancaster native was on the Team USA squad that finished eighth.
Women’s Rugby
* Bronze: Kristi Kirshe — The Franklin native was part of the Americans’ dramatic come-from-behind win over Australia to win a bronze in her second Olympics.
Women’s Sailing
Erika Reineke — The Boston College alum reached the medal race of women’s dinghy and finished ninth.
Shooting
Ada Korkhin — The 19-year-old from Brookline finished 32nd in 25-meter pistol.
Men’s Soccer
Miles Robinson — With Robinson playing a key role, the U.S. qualified for the quarterfinals of the Olympics for the first time since Sydney 2000.
Women’s Soccer
Sam Coffey — The New York native, who started her college career at BC, has been a starter for the women’s soccer team that is still alive in the knockout round.
Men’s Sport Climbing
Jesse Grupper — The Tufts alum hasn’t competed yet. Men’s sport climbing begins on Wednesday.
Women’s Artistic Swimming
Ruby Remati — The native of Andover was on the American team that finished ninth on Tuesday.
Men’s Track and Field
Graham Blanks — The Harvard track star hasn’t raced yet. Blanks will compete in the 5,000 meters on Saturday.
Women’s Track and Field
* Gold: Gabby Thomas — After finishing third in the 200 in Tokyo, Thomas delivered a dominant performance on Tuesday to win the 200. She’s expected to compete again in the 4×100 relay.
- Gabby Thomas cruises to gold medal in women’s 200M race
Women’s Triathlon
Kirsten Kasper — The North Andover native finished 49th in the triathlon.
Men’s Basketball (5-on-5)
Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and Derek White — The trio of Celtics have helped Team USA coast into the semifinals after Tuesday’s rout of Brazil.
Massachusetts
Former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on hot seat in NCAA gender policy battle
Charlie Baker continues to be on the hot seat as Republican senators and women’s advocacy organizations push the former Massachusetts governor to allow only “biological females” to compete in NCAA women’s sports.
Baker, who became NCAA president after leaving Beacon Hill last year, received a letter from 23 Republican senators on Tuesday, urging him to update the NCAA’s student-athlete participation policies as the Biden-Harris administration implements its Title IX rewrite.
“The science is clear,” states the letter led by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, and signed by 22 Republican colleagues. “Males have inherent athletic advantages over females due to their anatomy and biology.”
New Title IX regulations went into place at the beginning of the month after the Biden-Harris administration, in the spring, rewrote the landmark 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in institutions that receive federal funding.
The updated regulations include protections for LGBTQ+ students, an expanded definition of sexual harassment at schools and colleges, and safeguards for victims.
In their letter, the Republican senators highlighted how they believe the NCAA has “still taken no steps to protect” female student-athletes. The Title IX rewrite has gone through in just 24 states, with Republican attorneys general fighting the regulations in 10 lawsuits to block them in the 26 other states.
“Consistently, when adult males’ athletic performance is contrasted with adult females’ athletic performance in sports relying on endurance, muscle strength, speed, and power, males dominate, outperforming females by 10 to 30%,” the letter states.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona emphasized on Aug. 1 how the regulations “clarify that Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination includes all forms of sex discrimination.”
“It’s unacceptable that any student has to give up on their dreams of a college degree because they’re pregnant,” he said, “and it’s unacceptable that any student face discrimination or bullying simply because of who they are.”
Republican senators also in their letter stressed how the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Council of Presidents approved a policy in April that prohibits the participation of males in women’s sports.
That came before the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Lia Thomas, a swimmer who became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I national championship, lacked standing to challenge a World Aquatic policy, preventing Thomas from the Olympics.
“While men may have inherent athletic advantages, they have no advantage over women in their level of passion, drive, or desire to compete,” the Republican senators state.
Massachusetts
Steward landlords turn over properties to their lender, advancing sales talks – The Boston Globe
Two landowners that have been seen as roadblocks in long-stalled talks to sell six Steward Health Care hospitals in Massachusetts appear to be walking away from their properties, boosting the chances that hospital sales can be completed by the end of the week.
After multi-party negotiations dragged on through last weekend, attorneys said during a US Bankruptcy Court hearing Tuesday that real estate firm Medical Properties Trust and its partner Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, which jointly owned a long-term lease on the hospital properties, agreed to turn it over to their mortgage lender.
That surprise agreement would effectively remove MPT and Macquarie from the hospital sales talks, leaving lease negotiations with prospective buyers in the hands of New York-based Apollo Global Management, a Wall Street giant that manages assets of nearly $700 billion but is largely invisible to the public in Massachusetts.
With a single negotiator, and all parties motivated to wrap up sales deals by Friday, “significant progress has been made,” Steward’s lawyer, David Cohen, told Houston bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez.
Steward said it has qualified bids from prospective buyers of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Haverhill, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Morton Hospital in Taunton, and St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River.
The bankrupt company said it drew no qualified bids for two other hospitals, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer. The judge last week approved a Steward plan to close both of those acute care hospitals by the end of August.
Hugh McDonald, a lawyer for the Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services and the state Attorney General’s office agreed “we made a lot progress” over the past week and said state officials expect the sales deals to be wrapped up this week.
The progress was enough for Governor Maura Healey’s administration to modify a plan to offer about $30 million in bridge funding for the Steward hospitals on the condition that purchase agreements were finalized by Tuesday. Even with the deals unfinished, the administration will advance a first tranche of the funding, $11.3 million, this week.
A second tranche of $18.6 million will be paid on Aug. 16 only if the deals are completed by Friday, according to the modified funding deal. Judge Lopez, who must sign off on any money flowing to Steward during the bankruptcy proceedings, approved the bridge funding Tuesday.
“This payment agreement represents the Commonwealth’s continued commitment to achieving the transition of the six remaining facilities to new operators,” McDonald told the bankruptcy judge.
The new dynamics of the negotiations cast a spotlight on Apollo, a secretive firm that thus far hasn’t commented on its involvement in the Steward bankruptcy case. Other parties say Apollo has taken a leading role for weeks in the talks about lease terms with prospective hospital buyers while also bickering with the landlords, a dynamic described by a Steward attorney last week as an “intra-stakeholder dispute.”
Judge Lopez last week nullified a lease Steward negotiated with the landlords in 2016 requiring the hospitals to pay more than $100 million in annual rents. Even before it filed for bankruptcy on May 6, the cash-strapped hospital systems had stopped paying the rents, curbing the cash flow of the landowners who owed mortgage payments to Apollo.
The parties didn’t disclose financial terms of the agreement in principal transferring the hospital properties from the landlords to Apollo or whether Apollo planned to retain the properties and collect rents on them or sell the land and buildings to new hospital operators.
Steward, which is selling its hospitals and its doctors group to pay off its scores of creditors, is expected to run out of money from its bankruptcy loans within weeks. The bridge funding can be used only for the hospitals’ operating expenses until they can be sold, not for executive compensation or rental payments, according to the funding terms.
The money is an advance from MassHealth, the state Medicaid program, based on the hospitals’ participation in several quality and equity incentive programs the state sponsors for low-income patients.
Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com.
Massachusetts
'Fastest Growing' Nashville Hot Chicken Chain Coming To Worcester
WORCESTER, MA — A rapidly expanding chain of Nashville hot chicken restaurants will soon expand to Worcester.
Dave’s Hot Chicken — which has billed itself as “America’s fastest growing restaurant chain” — has applied for a license to operate a restaurant at 41 Park Ave., according to this week’s License Commission agenda. That address is the Trolley Square plaza, sandwiched between Park and Grove Street.
Dave’s might also be the fastest-growing restaurant chain in Massachusetts. Over the past year, the chain has opened restaurants in Framingham and Braintree, but has seven other locations in the state in Boston (Dorchester and Chinatown), Saugus, Chelmsford, Woburn, Newton and Medford.
The chain only got its start in 2017 as a pop-up restaurant in a Hollywood parking lot. The musician Drake has invested heavily in the chain, helping it to expand to more than 30 other states and Washington, DC. Boston Red Sox owner Tom Werner has also invested in the chain.
The Worcester License Commission will hold a hearing on the restaurant Thursday morning. The restaurant is proposing hours of 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, and 11 a.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday.
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