The first day of the Diamond League event in Eugene, Oregon saw two Americans grab first place in the three events contested. Joe Kovacs won the shot put for the first time this year with a world leading 22.13m after a third place finish in Shanghai. The Americans went first-third just like in Shanghai but this time Reese Hoffa jumped up to third. Jordan Clarke and Ryan Crouser finished fifth and sixth. The other victory for the US came in the women’s long jump where Brittney Reese had a season best performance and grabbed the top spot. Janay Deloach finished sixth in the event to give the US two in the top six for the second straight contest. Finally in the discus throw Whitney Ashley did improve from her sixth place finish in Shanghai but her 62.03m throw was only good enough for fifth.
Saturday will feature the rest of the events including previous winners Justin Gatlin in the 100m, Michael Tinsley in the 400m hurdles, Sam Kendricks in the pole vault, and Christian Taylor in the triple jump. The other previous top three finishers who will be in the field are Michael Rodgers in the 100m (third in Shanghai) and Natasha Hastings in the 400m (third in Shanghai).
Not a lot of success among the five Americans competing in the preliminaries of the sabre grand prix event in Moscow on Friday. Only one of the five, Jeff Spear, even advanced from their pool to the preliminary table of 64. Leonard Alexander Walker (1-5), Christopher Walker (2-4), Will Spear (2-4), Gabriel Armijo (0-6) all were knocked out in pool play. Jeff Spear won his knockout match 15-5 to join Eli Dershwitz, and Daryl Homer in the table of 64. On the women’s side the preliminaries begin with six Americans competing on Saturday.
While it didn’t end in a medal Marti Malloy was only beaten by two of the best at the Judo World Masters in Guadalajara. After an opening win via ippon Malloy lost in the quarterfinals to the eventual runner-up, France’s Helene Receveaux, after an ippon in a tight match. She lost by the same result in the repechage match to Korea’s Jandi Kim who ended up grabbing one of the bronze medals. Travis Stevens competes for the US in the -81kg division. Stevens grabbed silver in Havana earlier this year.
Carmen Small didn’t compete in the Amgen Tour of California last week unlike most of her rivals for the top spot in the pro time trial national championship on Friday. It didn’t seem to matter though as Small performed at her best on the 33km course posting a time of 42:31.91 in the second to last run that took the top spot and wouldn’t be passed. Small finished 23 seconds ahead of Amber Neben, 24th in California, while Kristin Armstrong went last but was only able to place third with a time of 43:40.47. Rounding out the top five were Brianna Walle, 13th in California, and Lauren Stephens, tenth in California.
On the men’s side Taylor Phinney was the last to go and ended up winning by a minute and 10 seconds over fellow Boulder, Colorado native Thomas Zirbel. Alexey Vermeulen rounded out the medal winners 2.78 seconds behind Zirbel. Brent Bookwalter and Evan Huffman finished fourth and fifth.
Saturday will be the road races to wrap up the national championships.
Previous USA Cycling Pro Road & Time Trial National Championships Coverage: Preview
The UCI BMX World Championships take place in Medellin, Colombia this week and begin with a time trial world championship tonight. Six US men and three US women will be competing for the world title. The top contenders for the US are Corben Sharrah, Nicholas Long, and Jeffrey Upshaw on the men’s side and Alise Post and Danielle George on the women’s side. There will be a qualifying round followed by a final.
Ian Boswell had made a push up the standings at the Giro d’Italia lately; finishing in the top 100 in three out of four stages at one point recently and moving into the top 100 overall. Friday he finished as the top American and in 27th overall on a 101 mile mountain stage. Boswell was just 8:27 behind the winner and was joined by Nathan Brown in the top 50 as Brown finished 13:36 back in 33rd. Joe Dombrowski (58th) and Chad Haga (71st) made it four in the top 100.
Dombrowski stayed in 39th overall (1:39:12 back) with Brown moving up to 48th (2:02:29 back). Boswell made a huge jump from 100th to 75th while Haga is 81st.
The final mountain stage will be Saturday, 83 miles starting in France, with a 101 mile flat stage on Sunday to close the competition out.
Lydia Keefe Sampson advanced to the semifinals of the C1 200m on Friday at the ICF Canoe Sprint World in Racice, Czech Republic but was unable to secure a spot in the single final. Sampson finished seventh of nine competitors in her heat with a time of 54.074 to grab the last automatic spot into the semifinals. Sampson needed a top three finish in the semifinals to advance to the only final being held on Saturday but finished sixth in 52.140.
Timothy Hornsby will begin competition in the K1 200m on Saturday with a heat and likely semifinal. Hornsby has a good chance to make one of the three finals being held in the event on Sunday.
Previous ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup Coverage: Racice Preview
The men’s and women’s sabre fencers wrap up their World Cup schedule with a Grand Prix stop in Moscow this weekend. Seven men and nine women will take part for the US with five advancing straight to the table of 64. On the men’s side advancing will be Eli Dershwitz, and Daryl Homer and on the women’s side Mariel Zagunis, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Dagmara Wozniak. The men’s preliminary round is on Friday with the finals on Saturday while the women will start with the preliminary round on Saturday and the finals on Sunday.
Two American boxers advanced to Friday’s finals with victories in Thursday’s semifinals as the US hopes to have two gold medalists for the second straight world championships. Claressa Shields made it look easy once again in the 75kg division where she defeated Chinese Taipei’s Nien-Chin Chen 3-0 with all the judges once again scoring it a sweep. She’s joined in Friday’s finals by Shadasia Green who advanced to the +81kg final with a sweep of Turkey’s Sennur Demir.
For the other three Americans competing on Thursday things didn’t go so well and they will have to settle for bronze. Marlen Esparza lost to China’s Yuyan Wang in the 45-48kg division with all three judges seeing in 39-37. 2015 Golden Gloves champion Christina Cruz in the 54kg division lost 3-0 as well to Bulgaria’s Stoyka Petrova with one judge having it 40-36 and the other two at 39-37. Franchon Crewsin the 81kg division had a more interesting bout with China’s Xialoi Yang as two judges had it 38-36 and one 39-35, a fight she was certainly in.
Just like on Wednesday with the US women the US men failed to qualify anyone for the final at the UIPM World Championship. Lucas Schrimsher was the top finisher for the US, 24th in his qualifying group with a 1095 score. Schrimsher was behind after fencing, where he placed 27th, and despite a 12th place finish in swimming was unable to climb higher after a 22nd place finish in the combined. In the same qualifying group Justin Torrellas was 29th with a 1010 score. Torrellas was 30th in fencing, 32nd in swimming, but did finish 17th in the combined event. In another qualifying group Sam Ruddock was 30th with a 1030 score with a 32nd place finish in fencing, 18th in swimming, and 24th in the combined.
With no men or women competing in the finals on Friday and Saturday the only remaining US competition will be Schrimsher and Samantha Achterberg in the mixed relay on Sunday.