★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★
★ To get the daily Sports Examiner Recap by e-mail: sign up here! ★
≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Athletics ● NBC Sports announced a rights extension with USA Track & Field through 2028, maintaining its hold on the U.S. national championships, to be shown on NBC and Peacock.
Additionally, USATF events in 2025 include the Los Angeles Grand Prix on 8 June and the New York Grand Prix on 21 June. The rights agreement does not include the 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials, which is licensed from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
The prior NBC-USATF agreement has been in place from 2017-2024.
¶
In the aftermath of the death of UAE Paralympic (F34) thrower Abdullah Hayayei in 2017 due to a discus cage falling on him during a training session in east London, UK Athletics pled not guilty to a charge of corporate manslaughter and a health and safety violation, and Keith Davies, head of sport for the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships, pled not guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and a health and safety violation.
An eight-week trial was scheduled for 12 October 2026.
¶
The Athletics Integrity Unit provisionally suspended coach Gerald Phiri, a two-time Zambian Olympian, who is coaching in the U.S., after a joint investigation with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency showed
“three athletes – all coached by Phiri – returning Adverse Analytical Findings for the same prohibited substance.
“Between July 2023 and August 2024, three track athletes tested positive for Metabolites of GW1516 (also known as Cardarine), a Metabolic Modulator, which is a non-specified substance prohibited at all times under the Prohibited List of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
“At this stage of the investigation, the AIU alleges that Phiri has committed Anti-Doping Rules Violations for the Possession of GW1516 when he was an Athlete in 2018 and 2019; the Possession of Meldonium (another Metabolic Modulator) as an Athlete Support Person in 2024; and for failing to co-operate with the investigation by providing false and inaccurate information.”
As a multi-time doping offender, Phiri could be banned for a long time if this case is successfully concluded against him.
● Boxing ● “We are not focused on the Olympics, we are focused on the IBA. The IOC and the Olympic Games are not the main focus for the federation. For us, the priority is the world championship, we are not focused on World Boxing, we are part of the IBA.”
That’s Russian Boxing Federation Secretary General Alexander Besputin, maintaining fidelity with the Russian-led IBA, which was excluded from the Olympic Movement in 2023. The IOC Session is expected to confirm World Boxing as its new governing body for Olympic boxing this week, and if so, only federations affiliated with World Boxing will be able to compete at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
That puts Russia in the bind of choosing between competing at the Olympic Games or competing in IBA tournaments. That choice does not need to be made until 2026, but it will have to be made.
● Curling ● The 46th World Curling women’s World Championship is ongoing in Uijeongbu (KOR), with Switzerland – winner of four of the last five Worlds – once again at the top of the round-robin standings.
At the halfway mark, the Swiss, skipped once again by Silvana Tirinzoni, are 6-0, ahead of Rachel Homan and defending champ Canada and South Korea (Ein-ji Gim), all at 5-1. The U.S., skipped by Tabitha Peterson, is in the middle of the pack at 3-3.
The top six teams will advance to the playoffs, which began on 22 March.
● Football ● Each of the 16 host cities for the FIFA World Cup in 2026 will have a local poster for the occasion, with the first unveiled on Tuesday in Philadelphia, in coordination with the Philadelphia Flower Show.
Official Host City Posters will be revealed every other day through 17 April.
● Swimming ● World Aquatics announced its three-stage World Cup schedule for 2025, all in 25 m pools in North America, in October:
● 10-12 October, in Carmel, Indiana (USA)
● 17-19 October, in Westmont, Illinois (USA)
● 23-25 October, in Toronto, Ontario (CAN)
The program will return the $1.2 million prize pool, with bonuses for triple winners and records; a total of $1.46 million was paid in 2024.
The U.S. has rarely hosted World Cup events. Indianapolis hosted in 2022; prior to that, you have to go back to Nassau County, New York in 2006!
¶
The World Aquatics Championships and World Aquatics Masters Championships in Singapore is recycling 100,000 aluminum cans in order to produce the 5,000 medals needed for the victory ceremonies at both events:
“Students from five PCF Sparkletots Preschool centres, eight primary schools, and three secondary schools are leading the charge in this effort through the School Recycling League.”
The “trash-to-treasure” project will work like this:
“The collected aluminum cans will undergo open-loop recycling, which will be processed, cleaned, and smelted into medals. The final medals will be manufactured by sustainable design company ipse ipsa ipsum, ensuring that each medal – approximately 150 grams in weight – incorporates recycled materials instead of new raw aluminum. On average, 20 recycled cans will be used to create each medal.”
¶
The NCAA women’s Division I championships are on this week in Federal Way, Washington, with the swimmers receiving a gift pack from the NCAA.
An unboxing video showed the pack for 2025 including a plastic water bottle, towel, luggage tag, NCAA stick-on patch, NCAA participation medal, a commemorative Yeti metal beverage bottle, a lululemon belt bag and a two-piece wireless speaker.
¶
Hungarian Olympic bronze winner Tamas Kenderesi, 28, third in the Rio 2016 men’s 200 m Butterfly, called the decision against him by the Court of Arbitration for Sport a “disgrace to Hungary” and told reporters:
“I was taken out of the everyday life and competition of a top athlete, I was in a nightmare that is incomprehensible. I know that I did not do anything related to doping, I always monitored what I was taking.”
The decision noted an expert evaluation of Kenderesi’s Athlete Biological Passport readings, who observed, “the likelihood of the abnormalities in the [% reticulocytes] described above being due to blood manipulation, namely the artificial increase of red cell mass for example [erythropoiesis-stimulating agents] ESAs and/or blood transfusions, is high.”
Kenderesi was suspended for four years, from 23 January 2023.
● Tennis ● The Professional Tennis Players Association, co-founded by Serbian star Novak Djokovic, filed multiple lawsuits against the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), and others in the U.S., Great Britain and Europe, claiming
“players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardizes their health and safety. We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts.”
The ATP responded in a statement, including
“While ATP has remained focused on delivering reforms that benefit players at multiple levels, the PTPA has consistently chosen division and distraction through misinformation over progress. Five years on from its inception in 2020, the PTPA has struggled to establish a meaningful role in tennis, making its decision to pursue legal action at this juncture unsurprising.
“We strongly reject the premise of the PTPA’s claims, believe the case to be entirely without merit, and will vigorously defend our position.”
The WTA reported total prize money of $221 million across more than 50 tournaments in 2024.
¶
★ Receive our exclusive, weekday TSX Recap by e-mail by clicking here.
★ Sign up a friend to receive the TSX Recap by clicking here.
★ Please consider a donation here to keep this site going.
For our updated, 895-event International Sports Calendar for 2025 and beyond, by date and by sport, click here!
