russia - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Athletes-turned-servicemen and women are not unique to America
While Memorial Day may be a uniquely American holiday, its sentiments — honoring those who have given their lives for their country in the line of duty — are global. America is no longer at war, having pulled out of Afghanistan, and if there was any positive to take away from that conflict that rage...
The International Gymnastics Federation will break you… eventually
The ability of the sports world to churn on through societal decay is dismaying or courageous depending on how you frame it. Oscillating between the stoicism of the Ukrainian national team playing through an invasion, and Black athletes being asked to perform in front of white people a day after a r...
Russia-U.S. prisoner exchange offers glimmer of hope for Brittney Griner
It appears Russia’s hardline obsession with punishing drug offenders has its limit after all. On Wednesday morning, Russia released a U.S. citizen and former marine, Trevor Reed, as part of prisoner exchange. In July 2020, Reed was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison following an altercation wi...
Let them play!
A ban from the FIFA World Cup didn’t stop any needless aggression from Russia in its brutal war on Ukraine. Even those Russians brave enough to speak out against Vladimir Putin’s needless invasion have felt the consequences of the barbaric actions of the Russian army, like Fedor Smolov. As another h...
Losers don’t get cake at Alabama
I have no problem with winners getting things that losers don’t. Participation medals should be called what they really are: Door prizes. Thank you for showing up and giving Billy and Timmy someone to beat on for an hour or so, now go eat your complimentary Nature Valley bars in the parking lot with...
Staying quiet about Brittney Griner hasn’t worked
For the past two months, people around Brittney Griner and the WNBA have been low-key. The idea was that any loud calls to have the basketball star released from her Russian prison as Vladimir Putin launched an assault against Ukraine would only upset the authoritarian, and so the wise course was to...
Biathlete Yevhen Malyshev killed defending Ukraine
Nineteen-year-old Ukranian biathlete Yevhen Malyshev was killed in action on Tuesday while fighting for the Ukrainian military against the ongoing Russian military invasion. His death was confirmed Wednesday by the International Biathlon Union, who wrote, “Above all, the IBU expresses its deepest co...
Roman Abramovich is getting out of Dodge and he’s going to leave Chelsea behind
Remember when NCAA programs, basketball or football, would impose sanctions on themselves in the hopes it would keep the NCAA’s great wandering eye from looking at them too closely? And then if that didn’t work, the coach would have to fall on his sword? That’s sort of what’s happening with Roman Ab...
Why you never dance with devils
The reckoning has finally come for the sports organizations that have played footsie with autocratic nations. And not just FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, but for the Premier League, Formula One, and any sports league that has cashed checks from questionable international sources while...
Ovechkin ‘calls for peace’ but fails to denounce Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
Alexander Ovechkin finally addressed the crisis in Ukraine, saying some words in a press conference in Philadelphia that sounded nice but were ultimately meaningless....
Fedor Smolov is that guy
After years of political tension between the countries, Russia officially invaded Ukraine on Wednesday, bringing swift sanctions and reaction from around the world, as countries almost unanimously opposed the actions spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin....
Kamila Valieva was just a figurine in a Game among nations
What a farce the International Olympic Committee has made of the Games this year. By not installing real sanctions against Russia for institutionalizing a surreptitious doping program in Sochi, and by not barring an athlete who tested positive for a banned substance, we were witness to the oddest of...