Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
French police evict hundreds from abandoned Paris warehouse
PARIS | With the Paris Olympic Games 100 days away, police carried out a large-scale eviction at France’s biggest squat in the south of the country’s capital. Authorities, including dozens of gendarmes, cleared out the makeshift camp at an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine on Wednesday.
The camp had become home to about 450 migrants, with images of the eviction spreading rapidly across social media.
Aid workers are concerned that the broader effort by Paris authorities to clear out migrants and other people sleeping rough in the city before the summer Olympics is troubling, as those evicted are not provided longer-term housing assistance.
“The squat was the biggest in France. It doubled in size in one year because of the Olympics. Last year, authorities cleared out migrants from nearby the Olympic Village, and many displaced people came here,” said Paul Alauzy of the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde, who has been closely following the steady pace of evictions over two years.
The conditions inside the warehouse were cramped, Alauzy said.
The clearance operation will continue over several days. The site is empty: 150 people left the night before the police arrived, while 300 were evicted before 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Among the 450 were 20 children and 50 women, the aid group said.
This action is part of a broader push by local authorities to dismantle makeshift camps as the city prepares to host the Olympics from July 26 to Aug. 11.
Advocacy groups working with the homeless and other vulnerable populations have been voicing their concerns for months. They have been particularly vocal about the accelerated pace of camp clearances as the Games approach, warning of the dire consequences for those who find themselves without shelter.
On Wednesday, observers said some five buses were at the site, intended to transport migrants to specially allocated sites in cities such as Orleans or Bordeaux, or in the wider Paris region, Ile-de-France. Other migrants will be bused to temporary filtering sites.
Alauzy said he fears that “it will just be a matter of days or weeks for many of the migrants to be sleeping rough on the street again.”
Umbrella association Revers de la Medaille, French for The Medal’s Other Side, which underscores the harmful effects of the Games on the most precarious populations, said it did “not know where families with school-going children were sent to.”
The fate of these displaced individuals remains a pressing issue as the city gears up for its time in the global spotlight, highlighting the tension between urban beautification efforts and support for marginalized communities.
Earlier this month, French police removed about 50 migrants, including families with young children, from the forecourt of Paris City Hall. The migrants packed their belongings and boarded a bus to temporary government housing in the town of Besançon in eastern France.
Responding to a question about Wednesday’s evacuation, French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said she wanted “to emphasize is that it has nothing to do with the Olympics.”
“These policies, they were implemented before the Games, they will be implemented after the Games,” she said. “And we want to handle those difficult situations with the best possible humanity. This is why we work with the aid groups. We really want to make things as fair as they can be.”
Gauff reaches Stuttgart quarterfinals with win over Vickery
STUTTGART, Germany | Coco Gauff battled her way to the quarterfinals of the Porsche Grand Prix on Wednesday with a hard-fought 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 win over compatriot Sachia Vickery.
The 134th-ranked Vickery created 19 break points but could only convert seven of them against the world No. 3 in the second round. Gauff had 15 double faults in the match, but rallied from 4-2 down in the final set before winning in 2 hours, 26 minutes with her first match point.
Gauff, who received a first-round bye at the clay-court tournament, awaits the winner between No. 7 Zheng Qinwen and Marta Kostyuk.
Kostyuk earlier overcame former champion Laura Siegemund 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-4 in their first-round match. The Ukrainian player twice served for the match in the second set only for Siegemund, who won the Stuttgart tournament in 2017, to take it to the third.
In the other second-round match Wednesday, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka advanced when her opponent and close friend Paula Badosa retired at 3-3 in the third set with an apparent leg injury. Badosa had a medical timeout while leading at 5-4 in the second set and returned with strapping on her left leg.
“I feel so bad for her… I don’t have any emotions right now, I’m not happy, I’m not sad,” said Sabalenka, who advanced 7-6 (4), 4-6, 3-3, retired.
Emma Raducanu powered to a 6-2, 6-1 win over former top-ranked player Angelique Kerber in a first-round meeting of two players with wild cards for the draw. The 2021 U.S. Open champion goes on to meet Linda Noskova in the second round.
Ons Jabeur also had to fight hard to prevail in a 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (1) win over Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia. Jabeur was down a break in both the second and third sets before winning.
The Tunisian player next faces Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in the second round.
Eight of the top-10 ranked women are playing at the tournament, the main event in the first week of clay tournaments on the WTA Tour this season.
Lawyers for Nassar
assault survivors have reached $100M deal
The U.S. Justice Department has agreed to pay approximately $100 million to settle claims with about 100 people who say they were sexually assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar, a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The deal has not been finalized and no money has been paid, the source said on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak before a formal announcement.
An internal investigation found that FBI agents mishandled abuse allegations by women more than a year before Nassar was arrested in 2016.
The settlement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Nassar was a Michigan State University sports doctor as well as a doctor at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics. He is serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts, under the guise of treatment.
Lawyers filed claims against the government, focusing on a 15-month period when FBI agents in Indianapolis and Los Angeles had knowledge of allegations against Nassar but apparently took no action, beginning in 2015. The Justice Department inspector general confirmed fundamental errors.
Nassar’s assaults continued until his arrest in fall 2016, authorities said.
The assault survivors include decorated Olympians Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.
“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told survivors at a Senate hearing in 2021. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.”
The Michigan attorney general’s office ultimately handled the assault charges against Nassar, while federal prosecutors in western Michigan filed a child sex abuse images case against him.
Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.
PGA Championship
to return to Kiawah
Island in 2031
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. | The PGA Championship is returning to the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in 2031, the coastal course where the previous two champions set tournament records.
Phil Mickelson became the oldest major champion at age 50 in 2021 when he won the PGA Championship at Kiawah for his sixth major. Rory McIlroy set a PGA Championship record with an eight-shot victory when he claimed his second major at the Ocean Course in 2012.
Only eight other courses have hosted the PGA Championships three times or more.
Kiawah Island first came onto the golf landscape when the United States narrowly defeated Europe in the 1991 Ryder Cup.
—From AP reports
