American Noah Lyles was a favorite to win gold in the highly-competitive men’s 200m final Wednesday, August 4, 2021, but it was Canadian Andre de Grasse and Wisconsin’s Kenny Bednarek who finished first in the Tokyo Olympics event. De Grasse won his fifth Olympic medal and his first gold in the race, followed by Bednarek… [Read More]
Olympics Archives
Simone Biles isn’t alone: Olympic athletes face a mental health crisis
August 5, 2021
Even before Naomi Osaka appeared on stage to light the Olympic torch, these Games were aflame with the issue of athletes’ mental health. Osaka had inserted it into the conversation in the runup to Tokyo, with her openness about feeling vulnerable and resulting withdrawal from the French Open and Wimbledon. Then Simone Biles made mental… [Read More]
Rafer Johnson, Olympic gold medalist who nabbed RFK killer, dead at 86
December 17, 2020
Rafer Johnson, who won the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics and helped subdue Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin in 1968, died Wednesday, Decmeber 2, 2020. He was 86. He died at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, according to family friend Michael Roth. No cause of death was announced. Johnson was… [Read More]
50 years after Black Power Fist, John Carlos and Tommie Smith to be inducted into Olympic Hall of Fame
October 10, 2019
Originally, John Carlos and Tommie Smith planned to call for a boycott of the Olympics over the lack of Black coaches at the 1968 Olympics. But with a massacre in Mexico City happening 10 days before the opening of the games, the black-gloved fist was a “cry for freedom and for human rights,” as Smith… [Read More]
