(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE San Francisco 2, Kansas City 0 St. Louis 2, Cleveland 1 San Diego 4, Chi White Sox 2
AMERICAN LEAGUE Boston 8, Minnesota 1 Boston 9, Minnesota 3 Detroit 4, Baltimore 3 Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 3 Texas 6, Seattle 5 LA Angels 9, Houston 8 NY Yankees 7, Oakland 4
NATIONAL LEAGUE Pittsburgh 2, Cincinnati 0 Atlanta 5, Miami 4 Chi Cubs 5, Washington 0 Milwaukee 10, Arizona 9 LA Dodgers 6, Colorado 5 NY Mets 2, Philadelphia 1
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PRESEASON Calgary 6 Seattle 1 Florida 3, Nashville 2 Philadelphia 6, Washington 2 Utah 5, St. Louis 3 NY Rangers 3, Boston 2 Edmonton 3, Winnipeg 2 (OT) Florida 6, Nashville 2 NY Islanders 4, New Jersey 2 Ottawa 6, Toronto 5 (OT) Vegas 4, San Jose 2
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE Denver 26, Tampa Bay 7 Green Bay 30, Tennessee 14 Indianapolis 21, Chicago 16 Minnesota 34, Houston 7 NY Giants 21, Cleveland 15 Philadelphia 15, New Orleans 12 Pittsburgh 20, LA Chargers 10 Carolina 36, Las Vegas 22 Seattle 24, Miami 3 Baltimore 28, Dallas 25 Detroit 20, Arizona 13 LA Rams 27, San Francisco 24 Kansas City 22, Atlanta 17
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS Las Vegas 78, Seattle 67 (Las Vegas leads series 1-0)) New York 83, Atlanta 69 (NY leads series 1-0) Connecticut 93, Indiana 69 (Conn. leads series 1-0) Minnesota 102, Phoenix 95 (Min. leads series 1-0)
(NEW YORK) — Three former world record holders, Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, USA’s Katie Ledecky, and Canada’s Summer McIntosh fell well short of their best times in the women’s 400 freestyle event at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday.
In contrast, none of the eight swimmers in the men’s competition on Sunday would have finished better than eighth at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
World-class swimmers rarely get slower in their prime and technology constantly improves, so why aren’t we seeing records drop like usual? Can a pool really be responsible for slowing down the swimmers?
Jud Ready, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Material Science and Engineering, teaches a class on engineering in sports and says a pool can be slow. He spoke with ABC News’ “Start Here” about the difference in this 2024 Olympics pool compared to others.
Ready and his alma mater, Georgia Tech, know about pools. The school hosted swimming competitions in the Atlanta 1996 Games and still boasts the so-called “fastest pool in the country.”
So what makes a pool fast? According to Ready, pool engineers obsess over keeping the water calm.
“You want to not have the other swimmers impact each other,” Ready said. “So any sort of waves or wake or splashing or anything like that, you want that to not impact the body next to you.”
When you’re dog paddling, a few splashes might not make a big difference. However, elite swimmers create waves when they thrash. Some swimmers describe riding the wake of others around them. Some of those waves travel downward, and as they bounce back up, it’s like swimming through ever-so-choppy water.
And the depth of the pool plays a critical role, Ready says.
Well, it turns out that the pool in Paris isn’t very deep. The tiles on the bottom are about 2.2 meters underwater, which is about 7 feet deep. Which is not very deep, according to Ready.
According to World Aquatics, the minimum depth for long swimming must be 2 meters (6.5 feet), but a recommended depth of three meters (9.8 feet) is advised to provide the best environment.
While some experts say 3 meters is the best, others say 2.5 is ideal. But none suggest 2.2 meters.
“And if the pool is deep enough, it’s two and a half,” Ready said. “Somebody has done some calculations to determine that two and a half seems to be a magic number where that energy [of thrashing] has dissipated.”
The differences are slight, but they could explain the slightly slower times in the Paris pool. Other factors at play in pool design include gutters to keep water from ricocheting off the sides, lane dividers to dampen the effect from your neighbors, and jets that affect water movement.
“If we were to do that in an Olympic-sized pool, the current to recirculate many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per hour would create either a current favoring you in one direction or opposing you in another direction,” Ready said.
Ready says modern pools recirculate water from the bottom, pushing swimmers upward. He also mentions that world records were once influenced by full-body swimsuits that made swimmers more buoyant and streamlined, but these swimsuits are now banned at the Olympics, much to his disappointment.
“I want materials to make everything better,” Ready said. “We’ve got technology to make better swimsuits. But some (have) there’s opposition to that. And I’m like, well, let’s go back to swimming in wool swimsuits then, if you’re worried about that.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not yet responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE N.Y. Yankees 7, Philadelphia Phillies 6 N.Y. Mets 2, Minnesota Twins 0 Tampa Bay Rays 9, Miami Marlins 3 St. Louis Cardinals 8, Texas Rangers 1 Pittsburgh Pirates 6, Houston Astros 2 Oakland Athletics 5, San Francisco Giants 2 Colorado Rockies 7, Los Angeles Angels 10
AMERICAN LEAGUE Baltimore Orioles 6, Toronto Blue Jays 2 Cleveland Guardians 5, Detroit Tigers 0 Seattle Mariners 10, Boston Red Sox 6 Kansas City Royals 4, Chicago White Sox 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE Cincinnati Reds 6, Chicago Cubs 3 Atlanta Braves 5 Milwaukee Brewers 1 L.A. Dodgers 5, San Diego Padres 6 Washington Nationals 0, Arizona Diamondbacks 17
(NEW YORK) — Rachael Gunn, the Australian breakdancer known as Raygun, is speaking out after her 2024 Paris Olympics performance went viral and was mocked both online and off.
Gunn, a 36-year-old college professor with a Ph.D. in cultural studies, said in a new video posted on Instagram Thursday that the “hate” she has received has been “devastating.”
“I just want to start by thanking all the people who have supported me. I really appreciate the positivity, and I’m glad I was able to bring some joy into your lives. That’s what I hoped,” Gunn said in the video, her first since competing in Paris. “I didn’t realize that that would also open the door to so much hate, which has frankly been pretty devastating.”
Gunn did not earn a medal in Paris, where she competed against fellow b-girls in their late teens and early 20s.
After losing her three round-robin battles by a score of 54-0, Gunn’s unique dance moves quickly became the focus of memes and jokes on social media.
On social media, some users dubbed one move by Gunn “the kangaroo,” while others compared her dance moves to when a child asks you to watch their performance.
“I’d like to personally thank Raygun for making millions of people worldwide think ‘huh, maybe I can make the Olympics too,'” one user wrote on X, alongside a photo of Raygun’s Olympic performance.
The criticisms online against Gunn also included unsubstantiated claims that she had manipulated the selection process to make it to Paris, where breaking was included for the first time in Olympic history.
In her new video, Gunn defended herself against those claims, calling them “allegations” and “misinformation.”
“While I went out there and I had fun, I did take it very seriously,” she said. “I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics, and I gave my all, truly.”
She continued, “I’m honored to have been a part of the Australian Olympic team, and to be part of breaking Olympic debut. What the other athletes have achieved has just been phenomenal.”
Gunn also directed her followers to statements made by the Australian Breaking Organization and the Australian Olympic Committee defending her selection and performance in Paris.
In 2023, Gunn won the QMS Oceania Championships in Sydney to earn Australia’s first-ever spot in the b-girl competition at the Olympics, according to her Olympic bio.
“The Oceania Olympic selection event (The QMS 2023 WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships) in October 2023 brought together the top Breakers, both Bgirls and Bboys. A panel of 9 international adjudicators, a head judge and a chairperson who oversaw the competition, using the same judging system at the Paris Games and trained to uphold the highest standards of impartiality. These judges are all highly respected in their respective communities and in the international Breaking scene,” the Australian Breaking Organization said in an Aug. 13 statement shared on its website. “Ultimately, Rachael Gunn and Jeff Dunne emerged as the top performers in exactly the same process, securing their spots to represent Australia in Paris. Their selection was based solely on their performance in their battles on that day.”
Australia’s Chef de Mission, Anna Meares, issued public support for Gunn on Aug. 10, in a news conference.
“I love Rachael, and I think that what has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors, and taking those comments and giving them airtime, has been really disappointing,” Meares told reporters, according to ESPN. “Raygun is an absolutely loved member of this Olympic team. She has represented the Olympic team, the Olympic spirit with great enthusiasm. And I absolutely love her courage. I love her character, and I feel very disappointed for her, that she has come under the attack that she has.”
The following day, on Aug. 11, the head judge of the breaking competition in Paris defended Gunn, while the head of the World DanceSport Federation said officials are looking out for her “mental safety” after the online criticism.
Gunn said she is taking “pre-planned downtime” in Europe following the Olympics, and asked for privacy for her family and friends.
“I’d really like to ask the press to please stop harassing my family, my friends, the Australian breaking community and the broader street dance community,” Gunn said. “Everyone has been through a lot as a result of this, so I ask you to please respect their privacy.”
When not breaking, Gunn is a researcher and lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she studies the “the cultural politics of breaking,” according to her university biography.
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