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The road to the Triple Crown meets the road to the London Olympics on Saturday when American beach volleyball hopefuls take to the sand on the infield at Pimlico.
Cullen Jones has been waiting four years for a shot at redemption.
The U.S. beach volleyball team of April Ross and Jennifer Kessy has qualified for their first Olympics, joining fellow Americans and two-time gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor in the tournament.
Taekwondo fighters are spending hours perfecting their kicks as they prepare for the London Olympics. They may also be spending lots of time spying on their opponents.
9NEWS reporter Matt Renoux tags along as members of the U.S. sailing team are pushed to their limits while training with the U.S. Navy SEALs in Colorado Springs.
The court is the same size, the basket is at the same height and diameter, and the ball is also the same. The sweating uniforms, the free throw and the three point shot are identical. The victory will be there when the stopwatch stops. But there is something that does not exist in the Olympic Games: the duel in wheelchairs.
A millimetric assist, a slam dunk, a buzzer-beater, an alley-oop, an unimaginable shot… The Basketball passion is part of the daily lives of millions of fans all over the globe, but only every four years the dream comes true: the Olympic gold medal. For one specific country, however, with its uncountable stars in the Basketball court, that means more than a challenge. It is show time. Not even the sky is the limit.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA), supported by the Brazilian Olympic Committee (BOC) and Brazilian Basketball Federation (BBF), held this Monday, April 30, in Rio de Janeiro, the draw for the Olympic Basketball Tournaments for Men and Women at the Olympic Games London 2012. This was the first time in history that a draw of groups of an Olympic sport is carried out in Brazil. The draw took place in the auditorium of the Rio 2016™ Organising Committee and the Brazilian Olympic Committee.
In his book The End of History and the Last Man, from 1992, Japanese American political scientist Francis Fukuyama translated into words the feeling of millions in a world of transformation. The recent dismantling of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded a new era, and for many the end of the Cold War appeared to be the final victory of a political ideology, an economic system and, above all, a country: the United States of America.
Pau Gasol was 12 years old and a little over 1.90m tall when he experimented with his first movements as a Basketball guard at school as the US dream team left the world in awe at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, his home town. That was the first Olympic edition with authorised participation of the NBA players, the professional US Basketball league, where names such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson gathered more admirers than contenders in the Basketball court.