Gymnastics: Biles eyes yet another record performance at worlds

American Simone Biles will look to extend her legacy as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time as she bids to tumble her way to an unprecedented fifth women's all around title at the world championships in Stuttgart.

The owner of 20 world medals, including 14 golds, the 22-year-old could end the championships as the most decorated athlete in the competition's history by topping Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo's record haul of 23 medals.

A year ago, the four-time Olympic champion won a medal in all six of the events open to the women, and few would bet against her replicating the feat as she remains the front-runner with just nine months to go to the Tokyo Games.

New moves that she debuted at the U.S. nationals in August, such as her triple-twisting double backflip on the floor exercise, could help her secure glory.

“I don't have anything to prove to anybody,” Biles told Olympic Channel in August. “I'm out there doing it just for myself this time... and see how far I can push myself.”

More than 540 athletes from a record 92 nations will be showing off their skills at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart, and both teams and individuals will have the chance to qualify for next summer’s Games.

The Russian men are primed for success in the all-around with the return of champion Artur Dalaloyan and 2019 European champion Nikita Nagornyy.

China’s Xiao Ruoteng, the 2017 all-around winner, will be seeking redemption after losing the tie-breaker in last year’s all-around final.

OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION

The Russian, Chinese, and Japanese men have already earned a team berth to Tokyo by placing in the top three at last year’s worlds in Doha.

The U.S., Russian, and Chinese women have done the same. In Stuttgart, the top nine teams that did not already qualify in 2018 will secure their Olympic spot.

Some of the top teams looking to punch their ticket for Tokyo include Canada, France, Japan, Brazil, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands on the women’s side and the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Ukraine on the men’s side.

A long-time powerhouse in gymnastics, the Romanian women will eye a spot in Tokyo after failing to qualify for the 2016 Rio Games. They had won a team medal at every previous Olympics since 1976.

Those looking to lay down the marker before Tokyo include 2018 apparatus champions Nina Derwael of Belgium on the asymmetric bars and China’s Liu Tingting on balance beam.

Derwael’s bar work stands out due to her extreme difficulty, but she will be tested by American Sunisa Lee.

France's Melanie de Jesus dos Santos will also be hoping to be in the mix after her all around triumph at the European championships.

Russia’s Angelina Melnikova will return after narrowly missing medals in Doha on floor and in the all around, while Uzbekistan's Oksana Chusovitina will be out to prove that life as a top level gymnast can go on and on as she will be competing in her 17th world championships aged 44.

Flying Dutchman Epke Zonderland always puts on a show in the horizontal bar will be determined to add to his haul of six world medals in the event.

Japan will be missing some top athletes due to injury, including six-time world all around champion Kohei Uchimura on the men’s side. For the women, Mai Murakami, floor champion at 2017 worlds and all-around runner up in Doha, is also sidelined.

The competition will run from Oct. 5 to Oct. 13.

(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Murray 'happy and lucky' to be father

MONTREAL, Canada -- Andy Murray said he is feeling "happy and lucky" at becoming a father after he and wife Kim announced they will become parents for the first time.

The 28-year-old world number three and Olympic champion will be the latest member of the top 10 to be a dad when the couple's first child is born, believed to be February next year.

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka are already well-versed in juggling the demands of family and tennis.

"I'm not thinking what the impact (of becoming a father) will have on my career," said Murray, a former Wimbledon and US Open champion.

"We are both extremely excited, happy and we feel lucky. But this is also private news and stuff we want to keep close to our family and friends."

Murray and longtime girlfriend Kim Sears, 27, married in April and since then his form on tour has been impressive with a 27-4 winning record.

In that time, he won his first ever titles on clay and reached the semi-finals at the French Open and Wimbledon.

Meanwhile, Murray said he was hoping for the chance to face world number one Djokovic in the closing stages of the Montreal Masters as tries to put his hardcourt game into gear ahead of the US Open which starts in three weeks' time.

"Players have competed this season with Novak (48-3 this season with six titles)," said Murray.

"He's just been that little bit better. That's why he's number one in the world.

"He's won some close matches in the big events. He's obviously the favourite here. He definitely deserves to be the best in the world, though guys have pushed him very close as well.

"It should be an interesting week. Hopefully I can play some good tennis and get the opportunity to play against him."

The Scot is seeded to make the final in Montreal where Djokovic, who has not touched a racquet since beating Federer for his third Wimbledon title a month ago, should be waiting.

Murray, by contrast, helped Britain into the Davis Cup semi-finals the week after play concluded at the All England Club.
He then made a stuttering start to the North American hardcourt swing as he lost his opening match in Washington last week.

But his exit at the hands of Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili was still encouraging for the world number three.

"I came very close and I had a chance to close it out when I served for it in the third set," Murray said of his Washington setback.

"I feel OK, it just takes time to get used to the hardcourts.

"You need to get used to them again, My match was two and a half hours long, so that's a positive in some ways."

With Munich, Madrid and London Queen's club titles to hand in 2015, Murray is not lacking in confidence.

But an Australian Open final and semis in Paris and Wimbledon have left him hungry to take a big step at a major once again.

"My consistency has been better this year than in 2014, my game has improved," he said prior to a Montreal second-round start against one of two Spaniards -- Feliciano Lopez or Tommy Robredo.

"I've played good tennis at most of big events this year. I've given myself opportunities in almost every event I've played."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Caitlyn Jenner steps out to collect sports courage award

LOS ANGELES -- Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner issued an impassioned plea for transgender acceptance Wednesday in her first public appearance since coming out as a transgender woman, defying a blizzard of derision on social media.

Formerly Bruce Jenner, the US decathlon champion of the 1976 Montreal Olympics seized the moment for transgender advocacy as she collected the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the nationally televised ESPY sports awards gala in Los Angeles.

"If you want to call me names, make jokes, doubt my intentions, go ahead -- because the reality is, I can take it," said Jenner, 65, dominating the stage in an elegant form-fitting white gown and wavy shoulder-length hair.

"But for the thousands of kids out there coming to terms with being true to who they are -- they shouldn't have to take it," she said to robust applause from a theater full of top US college and pro athletes, including the World Cup-winning US women's soccer squad.

It was Jenner's first major public appearance since coming out as a transgender woman in an televised interview in April where she discussed how she had been grappling her gender identity since childhood.

Named for the US tennis star who died of AIDS in 1993, the Arthur Ashe award has in past years gone to athletes like Billy Jean King and Muhammad Ali and non-athletes including Nelson Mandela.

But throughout the three-hour prime-time ESPY broadcast, hundreds of posts appeared on Twitter demanding to know why the Olympian turned reality TV star on "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" was being honored for courage, four decades after a gold-medal triumph.

Many thought Lauren Hill, who fulfilled her dream of playing college basketball in Ohio despite a brain tumor that took her life in April at the age of 19, was more deserving.

She instead was recognized with a "best moment" award, presented to her parents, for a game in which she scored the first and last baskets.

Jenner, whose mother, sister and children attended the awards, said her life going forward would be dedicated to doing whatever she could "to reshape the landscape of how trans people are viewed and treated ... (and) to promote a very simple idea -- accepting people for who they are."

Nearly a half-hour of the broadcast on ABC television was dedicated to Jenner, including a 15-minute biographical video that the ESPN sports network, which sponsors the Excellence In Sports Performance Yearly accolades, immediately posted on social media.

It was preceded by a commercial for Google that portrayed a gym in Kansas City, Missouri and how it strives to give a sense of belonging to transgender youth.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

LOOK: Caitlyn Jenner on Vanity Fair cover

US Olympic champion turned reality TV star Bruce Jenner is on the cover of Vanity Fair, as Caitlyn Jenner.

Jenner, the stepfather of Kim Kardashian, earlier revealed he is transitioning from male to female, ending long-running speculation he identifies as a woman.

The 65-year-old said he had wrestled with his sexual identity since he was a kid.

"I've always been confused about my gender identity since I was this big," he told ABC's celebrity interviewer Diane Sawyer.

"Here I am, stuck -- and I hate the word -- (a) girl stuck in a guy's body... As of now I have all the male parts and all that kind of stuff."

But asked point blank if he was a woman, Jenner said: "Yes. For all intents and purposes, I'm a woman."

Speculation that the actor, race-car enthusiast and 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics decathlon gold medalist was undergoing a sex change has been rich fodder for supermarket tabloids for months.

Supposed telltale signs, based on paparazzi photos from the streets of Los Angeles, include shaved limbs, long hair worn in a ponytail and what appears to be a sports bra under a T-shirt.

'I am not gay'

Jenner said he identifies himself as "her," but not by a specific name. The ABC interviewer used "he" and "him" throughout, without causing any apparent discomfort for the former Olympian.

He stressed the difference between gender identity and sexuality.

"I am not gay," Jenner said. "I am, as far as I know, heterosexual. I've always been with a woman, raising kids."

Just before making the long-expected announcement, Jenner symbolically let his hair down.

"Let's take the damn ponytail out," he told Sawyer, smiling.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights group GLAAD welcomed Jenner's announcement.

"Though Jenner's journey is one that is deeply personal, it is also one that will impact and inspire countless people around the world," GLAAD head Sarah Kate Ellis said.

Singer Miley Cyrus gushed on Twitter: "I LOOOOVE LOOOVE LOOOVE Bruce Jenner!!!!!!!"

Born outside New York in October 1949, thrice-married Jenner became an American sports hero when he set a world record with his Montreal decathlon victory.

Leveraging his fame, he appeared on boxes of Wheaties, a popular American cereal known as "the breakfast of champions," then tried his hand as a movie actor, with less than stellar results.

But it was through his marriage to the former Kris Kardashian that he once again became a household name in "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" in which he appeared as the sometimes bemused stepfather of her flamboyant daughters Kourtney, Kim and Khloe.

The couple have two daughters of their own, but they obtained a divorce in December, 14 months after separating -- although he has been seen still wearing a wedding ring.

Hero once again
"Not only was I able to call him my husband for 25 years and father of my children, I am now able to call him my hero," Kris Jenner tweeted.

Jenner's 89-year-old mother Esther hailed her son's announcement, comparing her pride to that when he won at the Olympics.

"I never thought I could be more proud of you. But I'm learning I can be," she wrote.

Jenner's son Brandon tweeted simply: "Proud son," along with an Instagram picture of himself as a young boy perched on his smiling father's shoulders.

Step-daughter Kim Kardashian trumpeted:

"Love is the courage to live the truest, best version of yourself. Bruce is love. I love you Bruce. #ProudDaughter."

Her sister Khloe wrote: "Bruzer, I'm soooo proud of you! Dads really are heros."

National Center for Transgender Equality advocacy group executive director Mara Keisling called Jenner's declaration "one of the most profound displays of bravery and courage I've seen."

Jenner, clearly relieved to have finally come clean, said: "I'm saying goodbye to people's perceptions of me and who I am.

"I'm not saying goodbye to me because this has always been me." - with a report from Agence France-Presse

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials: Nastia Liukin struggles again as Olympic hopes fade

SAN JOSE, Calif.— Nastia Liukin rolled through the first 30 seconds of her uneven bars routine Friday night, displaying the form that helped make her an Olympic champion in Beijing four years ago.

Only, it's not four years ago. And Liukin knows it.

Needing a big night to show U.S. women's team coordinator Martha Karolyi she is ready to contribute in London next month, Liukin and her weary shoulders instead faltered at the gymnastics trials. Her dreams of becoming the first defending all-around champion to return for the next games since 1980 vanished along with it.

Liukin posted a score of 14.050 on her signature event, better than the national championships three weeks ago but nowhere near where it needs to be to nab one of the coveted five Olympic spots.

"(I was) running out a little bit of steam, that was basically it," Liukin said. "I felt like I had a better routine all around besides the very end of it."

Maybe, but the 22-year-old knows the finals on Sunday will likely be the last time she suits up in competition.

"I was at the peak of my career four years ago and if anybody would have ever told me in 2008 that you would have been competing in the 2012 Olympic Trials I probably wouldn't have believed them," Liukin said.

Maybe because returning was never really part of the plan. Liukin took a sabbatical after the 2009 nationals before deciding to make a comeback last summer. She could never quite get healthy while training with shoulders shredded by two decades of gymnastics.

Liukin refused to make excuses, saying if she would have started training earlier her shoulders might not have withstood the abuse. Though she was visibly disappointed after her bars routine, she gamely hopped on the beam 10 minutes later and posted a 14.5.

"I could have just scratched after bars and said, 'I'm finished,'" Liukin said.

She didn't, and patiently answered question after question in the aftermath and has no plans to skip out on the finals.

"I was taught at a young age by my mom and dad to never give up and that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish what I started," Liukin said.

Her father and coach Valeri stood quietly off to the side watching his daughter talk about a career that has taken her to the greatest heights.

"I'm sure she wants to cry right now, I'm sure that will come later," he said. "She's very tough. Very strong."

source: aol.sportingnews.com