Sports
Gabby Thomas, Olympic 200-meter favorite, is firmly in the spotlight — and ready for it
EUGENE, Ore. — After the women’s 200-meter final was over, and she secured a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, McKenzie Long said she heard the craziest thing from Gabby Thomas.
“She said she had a dream about me,” a beaming Long said, holding a bouquet of white and purple flowers, a bronze medal hanging from her neck. “She was like, ‘Yeah, I had a dream that you were going to be an Olympian.’” I was like, ‘You didn’t want to tell me this before we got out here on this line.’”
Thomas said she didn’t want to jinx the dream, so she kept it to herself until after the race. But Long — before perhaps the biggest race of her life, in her best event, with a chance to make Paris — could’ve used the anxiety relief.
That proclamation from Thomas, Long implied, might’ve worked wonders before the race. Because belief from an idol works wonders for confidence.
“I literally tell her all the time, ‘I want to be you.’ She’s inspiring,” Long said. “That’s my goal. I want to be like Gabby Thomas.”
It’s taken some getting used to for Thomas, this new skin she’s in. The one with expectations. The one with experience. The one on the marquee.
Sometimes, she said, she wishes she could slink back into a former normalcy, when it was just about the running and the simple camaraderie of sport. Those days, though, are over.
“Great athletes are under pressure, and I just understand that. And so, if I want to be a great athlete, if I want to be among the names of Sanya (Richards-Ross), Allyson (Felix) … you just have to compete under pressure and accept that’s part of it.”
Thomas, 27, is embracing this escalating pedestal she’s on. Saturday’s 200-meter final was confirmation of her eliteness.
She smoked all comers in 21.81 seconds, including Sha’Carri Richardson. And that’s two-tenths of a second slower than her best time. In one of the most glorified events in sprint, Thomas is America’s premier figure.
Gabby Thomas, center, Brittany Brown, right, and McKenzie Long all qualified for the 200-meter in Paris for Team USA. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
Thus, she is poised for stardom. Face-of-franchise material coming into her prime. She already has two Olympic medals — a bronze in the 200 and silver in the 4×100 relay in Tokyo. Last year, she won a silver in the 200 and a relay gold in the world championships. A gold in the 200 in Paris, with the likely chance of winning another in relay, would vault her to another stratosphere of the nation’s consciousness.
Thomas has the total package. She has an aura people love. She’s marketable. She’s has the kind of depth that makes her platform purposeful. She’s got seniority and respect.
Which is why college superstars such as Long are shaping their dreams into her likeness.
“It’s really humbling actually,” Thomas said. “I remember feeling that way about other athletes that I watched. My last Olympic trials, I felt that way about Allyson Felix. I felt that way about Jenna Prandini, who I’m still running against. … So to have a younger athlete look at me and say that just feels so surreal. But it makes me happy. It really feels like it’s giving me purpose.”
Most important, Thomas is excellent.
The 5-foot-9 Atlanta native, by way of Florence, Mass., is a refined elegance on the track. The efficiency of her form and gracefulness of her stride can make it feel like she isn’t running as fast. Speed doesn’t look so laborious when Thomas runs, though no less explosive.
Now, she’s got experience on her side. She can feel the benefits.
“Actually, yeah, I do, and I’m so grateful for that,” Thomas said. “Because there is a lot more pressure when you already have medals, when people know your name. But there’s also comfort in knowing, ‘OK, I have done this before.’ I just feel that maturity. I feel like, ‘OK, I’m going to go out and execute and I’m not going to let the nerves get to me.’ And that’s a feeling that just — you can’t explain, but it is so comforting to know that.”
Long knew what was up. The sensation from Ole Miss, loved her chances once she saw the lane assignments. Not just because Lane 7 is a decent combination of a looser curve and vision of the field. But because Thomas was in Lane 8.
“I wanted to stay on top of Gabby’s hip,” Long said. “I knew once I did that, I would position myself the way that I wanted to.”
Long rode Thomas to a time of 21.91 seconds, finishing third, just behind Brittany Brown’s 21.90. Richardson — America’s 100-meter champion, who’d looked dominant in the 200 leading up to the final — finished fourth at 22.16. While her bid for the 100/200 double ended, Richardson will still be one of the United States’ big attractions when she makes her debut in Paris, along with the ever-popular Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.
They’ll be joined by Thomas.
But this star wasn’t born, not in the traditional sense of a moment birthing her luminance. This star was forged, cultivated.
A main component of this evolution, which has her on this cusp, is Thomas wanting it.
She didn’t always. Track was about a love of running and personal growth. She loved what the competition brought out of her, the development and improvement. As she got better and became significant in the sport, the attention was but a byproduct to endure.
Greatness at this level is an investment. Where she’s headed, based on this trajectory she’s been on since Harvard, required internal permissions. Because of what it extracts, and what it exposes her to, Thomas needed to adopt this into her purpose.
She has. Now she’s ready. She’s matured to the point she believes she can handle the spotlight of stardom, the pressures and burdens that accompany its glory. All that’s left is to win on the biggest stage. She believes it’s her time.
“I definitely feel like a vet at this point,” she said, “but I also feel like I have not reached my full potential. I feel like I can still. I feel like this is my year.”
GO DEEPER
Gabby Thomas: The U.S. track star with a bigger purpose beyond Olympic medals
(Top photo of Gabby Thomas and McKenzie Long embracing after qualifying for Paris in the 200-meter: Patrick Smith / 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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