Sports
Can Paris as Olympic host renew enthusiasm for the Games?
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The Olympic Games have had a rough decade.
For so many people over the past 10 years, those five multicolored rings that were long synonymous with the pinnacle of sport came to symbolize billions in wasteful spending, similar excesses of political and moral dissonance and a dismantling of the idea of the Games as pure competitions played for spirit and country.
Every cycle, the Games stumbled through another series of problems: Russia’s annexing of Crimea and its use of a systemic doping program during the Sochi Games in 2014; the threat of the Zika virus and unparalleled disorganization in Rio de Janeiro in 2016; the threat of nuclear war in South Korea in 2018; the depressing images of empty stadiums because of the coronavirus pandemic in Tokyo in 2021 and Beijing in 2022.
Empty stands due to the COVID-19 pandemic took the shine off the Tokyo Games, which were also delayed one year. (Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)
At those same Beijing Games, organizers and the International Olympic Committee were frequently asked about free speech and the treatment of ethnic minority groups like the Uyghurs, a situation the United Nations later described as crimes against humanity, easily flying in the face of the stated values of the Olympics.
With each dent, television audiences in the United States have turned away in significant numbers, threatening one of the largest single sources of Olympic revenue.
Now comes Paris. One of the world’s leading tourist destinations, a city that conjures levels of fascination and romanticism that few if any can top, will take on the task of restoring to the Olympic Games that mythical quality that for so long allowed it to exist as something so much more than sport.
That quality might have always been more myth than truth. Crass commercialism helped transform the Olympics into a multibillion-dollar behemoth from the quaint sports festival seen when Paris last hosted 100 years ago. Still, Paris has promised to bring back the luster.
“I have been an athlete, and I love the pressure,” Tony Estanguet, a three-time gold medalist in canoe and the president of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, said during a visit to New York last fall. “How can we move the line and be more creative and more innovative? The success of the Games relies on this ability to evolve and to make the brand, this event, more attractive. It’s a permanent fight.”
The IOC, the roughly 100-member organization based in Switzerland that owns the trademark to the famous rings and awards the Games to cities that compete to hoist them, has been losing that fight lately for several reasons. One has been a lack of geographic diversity, with the previous three Olympics in East Asia.
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To change that, the IOC in recent years altered its bidding rules to take a more active role in targeting cities rather than simply selecting from whichever candidates offer themselves up. After Paris, the Olympics will head to northern Italy; Los Angeles; the French Alps; Brisbane, Australia; and Salt Lake City. Organizers hope that will help revive lagging interest in Western Europe and the Americas.
“No question in my mind, moving the Games to such an iconic European city like Paris, plus having fans and partners back in person, will be such a needed and welcomed lift,” said Michael Lynch, a leading international sports consultant and the former director of sports marketing for Visa, one of the main sponsors of the Olympics.
For their part, the French have taken up the fight in the most French way: by showing off their beautiful capital. Estanguet and his team decided years ago when they first bid for these Games to marry sports and culture as never before by placing the Games at some of the most famous and recognizable locations in and around the French capital.
The move is a stark turn away from the plan most cities have followed when they have hosted recent Olympics. That playbook generally involved finding a massive, undeveloped or long-since abandoned tract and building a huge park filled with sports facilities, usually somewhere outside the center of the city, and putting a big fence around it.
Paris did a bit of that with its Olympic Village, where athletes will live, in St. Denis, north of the city center and not far from the Stade de France, where track and field will take place. The aquatics center — host to diving, water polo and artistic swimming — is near there, too.
Just about everything else is stuffed into or just beyond the peripheral road that encircles the main area of Paris, which can be traversed on foot with a comfortable pair of shoes in an afternoon.
As the sun sets beyond the city Friday evening, the opening ceremony will unfold along the Seine, with some 10,000 athletes floating down the river on boats rather than marching into an enclosed, remote stadium. Beach volleyball will take place at the Eiffel Tower. Fencing will take place at the Grand Palais. Breaking, skateboarding and 3×3 basketball will happen near Place de la Concorde. The equestrian competition will happen at Versailles.
Beach volleyball in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower figures to be one of the visual spectacles of the Paris Olympics. (Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)
In addition to creating a two-week commercial for Paris, organizers want to reimagine what the Olympics can be by bringing them closer to population centers rather than siphoning them away in a remote area. It’s especially poignant after Tokyo and Beijing, two consecutive versions of the Olympics that were siloed as never before, with COVID-19 prompting organizers to prohibit paid spectators.
The fallout was ugly, especially in the United States, where the size of the television audience dwindled for NBC, whose media rights fee accounts for about 50 percent of Olympic television revenue. Coverage from Beijing in 2022 dropped 40 percent from South Korea in 2018, which was down from Sochi in 2014. Coverage from Tokyo in 2021 was down 42 percent from Rio in 2016.
Michael Payne, the former director of marketing for the IOC, said audiences have grown elsewhere, especially for the host countries in Asia, but after a few “challenging Games,” in his words, Paris brings the chance for a “reboot.”
“Would be good to get back to normal,” Payne said with Olympian understatement.
There is no guarantee for that. However wondrous and new Friday’s opening ceremony might appear, clouds are hanging over the Games, as there always are in this era.
Russia, long one of the most important countries in the Olympic movement, remains a pariah nation because of its history of state-sponsored doping and its invasion of Ukraine. Athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete as part of a neutral group of athletes with no national affiliation.
Israel’s war in Gaza, a significant response to deadly attacks by Hamas last October, has sparked calls for athletes from Israel to be banned and generated demonstrations at Israel’s first men’s soccer game Wednesday.
The threat of a terrorist attack looms, especially when so many events will take place in the center of Paris.
The worldwide anti-doping system, which relies on independent national organizations to test their athletes, has broken down. COVID-19 rates are rising. With people from all over the world converging on Paris, the city might become the ultimate petri dish, especially the Olympic Village, where the athletes will live and eat and socialize for the next 17 days.
David Wallechinsky, a leading Olympic historian, said he walked 10 miles through Paris this week searching for a pre-Games buzz. He couldn’t find it. Still, he knows everything changes once the competitions begin, the stadiums fill and the host country wins its first gold medal.
Wallechinsky also knows one thing for certain.
“It’ll look good,” he said of the Paris Games.
Estanguet wants more than that. He knows the world will be watching.
“The pressure is positive to me,” he said. “We have to succeed.”
Equestrian events will take place in front of the Palace of Versailles, one of the many marriages of sport and iconic venue at the Games. (Pierre-Philippe Marcou / AFP via Getty Images)
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photo of the Eiffel Tower: Maja Hitij / Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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