(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Oakland Athletics 5, Chicago Cubs 3 San Francisco Giants 5, Baltimore Orioles 3 San Diego Padres 4, Houston Astros 0
AMERICAN LEAGUE LA Angels 4, Chicago White Sox 3 Cleveland Guardians 5, Minnesota Twins 4 Boston Red Sox 2, Tampa Bay Rays 1 Detroit Tigers 4, Kansas City Royals 2 Texas Rangers 2, Toronto Blue Jays 0 NY Yankees 2, Seattle Mariners 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE Arizona Diamondbacks 9, Colorado Rockies 4 Atlanta Braves 7, Cincinnati Reds 1 LA Dodgers 8, Miami Marlins 4 NY Mets 10, Washington Nationals 0 Milwaukee Brewers 2, Philadelphia Phillies 1 St. Louis Cardinals 10, Pittsburgh Pirates 5
(NEW YORK) — Pennsylvania officially recognized flag football as a sanctioned girls’ high school sport in an announcement made by Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, Inc. (PIAA), on Wednesday.
The girls’ flag football was made an official state-sanctioned high school sport after the sport met the requirement to have had at least 100 participating teams across the state, according to a press release.
The figure was achieved in April with the help of the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers, which launched girls’ flag football leagues in 2022.
“This is not just an important day for the Eagles and Steelers, but for the sport of football and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Eagles Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie said in the release. “When we launched our Girls Flag Football League in 2022, we set an ambitious five-year goal to get the sport sanctioned in our state. Now, here we are three seasons later and two years ahead of schedule. The sport’s organic growth is a credit to the participants, administrators, coaches, officials, and parents who helped raise the profile of Girls Flag Football.”
He continued, “We thank the PIAA for their leadership in recognizing a sport that has the power to unlock new pathways and opportunities for girls of all ages in every community.”
The sport will be officially available for high school girls in the state starting in the 2025-26 school year.
Pennsylvania has now joined other states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New York, and Tennessee, in making girls’ flag football a state-sanctioned high school sport.
The decision will also unlock opportunities for the participants and school districts in allowing them to compete for a state championship and eventually create a pathway of talent for college sports and beyond.
Steelers President Art Rooney II, in a statement in the release, called the move a “groundbreaking moment for the future of girls’ flag football.”
“It has been great working with the Eagles to accomplish a successful ruling that will now give young girls the chance to compete at a state level,” the statement read. “We look forward to seeing how girls’ flag football continues to grow in Pennsylvania and worldwide.”
A growing interest in flag football, which is a non-tackling version of American football where players wear belts with flags on them, peaked this summer after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in October 2023 that flag football would be included on the LA28 Olympic sports program.
(LONDON) — Giorgia Villa might be the most “grateful” athlete on the face of the planet.
And no, it isn’t just because the newly minted Italian silver medalist helped Team Italy score their first Olympic team medal in gymnastics since 1928. Villa is sponsored by cheese.
Having also won the bronze at the 2019 World Championships as well as being on gold-winning teams at the 2022 Mediterranean Games and the 2022 European Championships, she has actually been sponsored by Parmagiano Reggiano since 2021, a three-year period where she has matured as an athlete to become one of the best gymnasts in the world.
“A new face is added, as a testimonial, to the prestigious team of Parmigiano Reggiano: The young gymnast Giorgia Villa, 2018 champion of the Youth Games and one of the most promising athletes in her specialty at an international level,” Impresa e Sport, an Italian marketing agency said in 2021 when they first announced the sponsorship deal.
“The very young athlete, spearhead of the national rhythmic gymnastics team, has in fact become the brand’s new ambassador, with all the enthusiasm and freshness of her splendid age. Tenacious, determined, smiling, Giorgia proudly underlined this new role as well as once again confirming how the combination of Parmigiano Reggiano and the world of sport is indissoluble in terms of authenticity, quality and energetic value, both in sporting activity and in correct nutrition,” the statement read.
Villa first started in gymnastics at the age of 3 when her mother signed her up for gymnastics lessons due to her high energy and activity level.
“I had just started nursery school, but I immediately understood that I would love that sport with all my being,” said Villa. “I left school and, still wearing my pink apron, I couldn’t wait to enter that gym and jump and run feeling free and happy.”
Now 21, Villa has been training at the Italian Gymnastics Federation’s International Academy of Brescia, Italy, since she was just 11 years old.
“Every single day has been a personal achievement. There have been many sacrifices that I have had to face, but I have received a lot of satisfaction which time after time has given me the energy needed to face future challenges that lay ahead of me,” said Villa during an interview in 2022. “I am a person who loves to show what she can do, and then achieving important results is incomparable to any sacrifice.”
“I love gymnastics so much because it allows me to always be in motion,” Villa continued. “It is also a wonderful method to let off steam and release all the energy I have in my body, to always be in a group and in company even if gymnastics is fundamentally still an individual sport. I also love the fact that it pushes me to try to overcome my limits by improving every single skill.”
Fast forward to 2024 and Villa can be seen across social media taking pictures with the massive wheels of cheese that are produced exclusively in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna to the west of the Reno river, and Mantua to the east of the Po river, according to the cheesemaker.
“Since I was a child I have always loved this fantastic product, a symbol of Italian excellence and culture, and from today being able to collaborate with them makes me extremely proud and charged to face future challenges,” Villa said at the time of her sponsorship announcement.
While the cheese sponsorship might be a bonus, Villa has always been honest about her goals within the sport of gymnastics and, when asked whether the Olympic Games were always her goal and if she considered quitting during difficult moments in her career, Villa was firm in her opinion and didn’t crumble.
“The biggest objective is the Olympics, for me and I think all of us. This (medal) paid (us) back for the injuries and hard moments that we lived over the years,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Minnesota Twins 5, San Diego Padres 7 Chicago White Sox 1, San Francisco Giants 4 Seattle Mariners 3, LA Dodgers 6 Toronto Blue Jays 10, Cincinnati Reds 3 Baltimore Orioles 9, NY Mets 5 Chicago Cubs 3, Detroit Tigers 1 Pittsburgh Pirates 4, Texas Rangers 0
AMERICAN LEAGUE Tampa Bay Rays 1, Oakland Athletics 0 Cleveland Guardians 9, NY Yankees 5 Boston Red Sox 6, Houston Astros 5 LA Angels 9, Kansas City Royals 5
NATIONAL LEAGUE Arizona Diamondbacks 3, Miami Marlins 1 Colorado Rockies 3, Washington Nationals 1 Atlanta Braves 3, Philadelphia Phillies 1 Milwaukee Brewers 3, St. Louis Cardinals 2
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION New York Liberty 94, Dallas Wings 74 Connecticut Sun 69, Los Angeles Sparks 61 Seattle Storm 83, Washington Mystics 77