Australian Rules Football Confronts C.T.E.

27 Feb

For the first time, researchers have found chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to blows to the head, in a player of Australian rules football. The disease, which can only be definitively diagnosed after death, was found in Graham Farmer, one of the game’s best players, who died at 84 in August. The diagnosis, which was detailed in …

Sabrina Ionescu Comes Up Big in Moments On and Off the Court

25 Feb

Monday was an eventful day for Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu, as the star point guard spoke at the memorial service for Kobe and Gianna Bryant in Los Angeles before traveling north to record a triple-double in a win at Stanford. The presumed No. 1 over all pick in this year’s W.N.B.A. draft, Ionescu is looking increasingly like the future face of …

FIFA, Seeking $1 Billion for Club World Cup, Hires U.S. Firm to Find It

24 Feb

FIFA largely blamed costs for scrapping the event, but Domínguez reacted with fury, demanding, in a letter to FIFA, a detailed breakdown on how much FIFA spent to host similar meetings recently in India, Rwanda and China. After finally bowing to the creation of the tournament, UEFA has so far stymied FIFA’s efforts to secure the participation of the continent’s …

In Canada, the Cost of Youth Hockey Benches the Next Generation

23 Feb

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Samuel Girard was a teenager when his parents sat him and his older brother Jérémy down in their Roberval, Quebec, home for an uncomfortable conversation that would dramatically alter their lives. The Girard family could afford to enroll only one of its sons in elite hockey for that year. Samuel’s father, Tony, drives forklifts at a nearby …