Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
Deshaun Watson cleared for contact, but will sit out second preseason game
CLEVELAND | Browns starting quarterback Deshaun Watson has been cleared for contact to his surgically repaired shoulder, but he’ll sit out his second straight preseason game when Cleveland hosts Minnesota this week.
Watson spent Saturday night’s preseason opener against Green Bay on the sideline as the Browns were beaten 23-10 by the Packers. The team is taking a cautious approach with Watson, who underwent shoulder surgery in November.
However, on a Zoom call Sunday, coach Kevin Stefanski said Watson will participate in this week’s joint practices against the Vikings. Minnesota will visit the Browns’ practice facility on Wednesday and Thursday before playing the Browns on Saturday.
Stefanski wasn’t specific about how much Watson will do against the Vikings, saying only that “he’ll get his work done versus them in a controlled setting.”
Stefanski also confirmed Watson is OK to have contact, though he’ll be protected in the sessions against the Vikings.
Watson has thrown virtually every day in training camp, occasionally taking a break by mimicking throws in some drills.
The Browns kept him out of the preseason opener as backup Jameis Winston started and played one series. Tyler Huntley finished the first half, and second-year QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson gave Cleveland a little spark in the second half by completing 14 of 18 passes for 134 yards.
The 28-year-old Watson fractured the glenoid bone in his right shoulder while rallying the Browns to a win over the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 12. The injury was another setback for the former Pro Bowler, who has only played in 12 regular-season games since 2020 for a variety of reasons.
He sat out the 2021 season in a contract dispute with Houston. Watson was then suspended 11 games by the NFL during his first season with the Browns, who signed him in 2022 to a $230 million contract.
Watson went 5-1 in six starts last season, and was finally looking like himself again when he got hurt.
Italy beats U.S. for gold
in women’s volleyball
at Paris Olympics
PARIS | Monica De Gennaro of Italy made three previous trips to the Olympics only to leave empty-handed each time.
Finally, at age 37, she’s going home with the gold.
Italy beat the defending champion U.S. team Sunday to win gold in women’s volleyball at the Paris Olympics.
“It feels special,” she said. “It’s the dream of every player to play in the final of the Olympics and win it. It is something unique. We worked so hard for so many years to be able to reach this final.”
When Italy scored the match point to end it, many of the players collapsed to the court, then began hugging in a huge scrum. Together they tossed De Gennaro into the air.
The victory came in straight sets, 25-18, 25-20, 25-17. The Italians ended a dominant tournament having lost just one set.
It’s the first medal in the sport for top-ranked Italy and sends the Americans home in disappointment after they won their first Olympic title in Tokyo. It’s a huge win for the Italians, whose previous best Olympic finish was fifth.
“It means everything,” Alessia Orro said. “There’s a lot of hard work, a lot of sweat, many sacrifices and many disappointments that have brought us this far. They made us take this path, they made us win the gold.”
The victory came in front of a boisterous crowd at South Paris Arena, where many fans waved Italian and U.S. flags. People danced and cheered as the Italians romped to the win.
The U.S. was up 6-5 in the third set before Italy scored the next seven points to take a 12-6 lead. The Americans fought back, scoring three of the next four points.
The U.S. got within 19-16 before Italy closed it out with a 6-1 run capped by the match point by Paola Egonu, who had a dominant performance, scoring 22 points.
“It’s magnificent,” Italy’s Caterina Bosetti said. “It’s the match that I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
Myriam Sylla beamed while wearing her gold medal as she spoke to reporters after the win. The 29-year-old, who was a first-time Olympian, was asked how it felt around her neck.
“It’s heavy like … the journey that we did to achieve it,” she said.
The silver finish by the Americans gives them a seventh Olympic medal to make them the winningest country in the volleyball.
“I will walk away being very proud that we were able to play on the last day of competition,” American Jordyn Poulter said. “And I think it feels even more sweet to us because of just all that we have gone through as a team.”
Italy swept Turkey in straight sets to reach the final while the U.S. beat Brazil in a five-set thriller for its spot in the game.
U.S. coach Karch Kiraly changed the lineup after a five-set loss to China on July 29 to start group-stage play. He moved veterans Jordan Larson and Kelsey Robinson Cook to the bench in favor of Avery Skinner and Kathryn Plummer.
The move worked, and the team defeated Serbia the next time out to get back on track. But on Sunday, it wasn’t enough to get past the mighty Italian team and repeat as champions.
Kiraly was impressed with the way his team fought through adversity to reach the final.
“It was absolutely awesome to see that when we got pushed to the limit … how capable this group was, how much resolve it had, how much grit it had,” he said. “That was probably the best thing to learn in these Olympics.”
U.S. ties China
in Paris Olympics
gold medal count
PARIS | The U.S. women’s basketball team held off France on Sunday to win gold in the final event of the Paris Olympics, and that hardware was needed for the Americans to tie China for the most with 40.
The U.S. easily won the total medal count with 126. Aside from the 40 gold, the Americans won 42 silver and 44 bronze.
“I saw the medal count beforehand so I knew,” said U.S. women’s coach Cheryl Reeve, who thought to herself, “that’s what we need — more pressure.”
The U.S. lost a bronze medal Sunday when the International Olympic Committee said it was reallocating the bronze given to Jordan Chiles in the women’s floor final to Romanian Ana Barbosu. U.S. Olympic officials are appealing.
China came in second in the total medal race with 91. China won 40 gold, 27 silver and 24 bronze. Japan was a distant third with 20 gold medals, 45 overall. Great Britain won 65 medals, but only 14 were gold for an overall ranking of seventh.
The medal rankings are done by gold, and the last time the U.S. didn’t top the standings was at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when the Americans finished second to China, 48-36.
The U.S. has won the most overall medals in eight consecutive Summer Games. The last time the Americans failed to top the medal leaderboard was the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. The “Unified Team” featuring athletes from ex-Soviet republics won both the most golds (45) and total medals (112), while the Americans were second in both categories with 37 golds and 108 medals.
The U.S. had been battling with China for the lead in gold medals the last several days and entered Sunday, the final day of competition, trailing China 39-38.
China picked up an early gold medal Sunday when Li Wenwen won the top medal in women’s +81kg weightlifting. The U.S. followed with another gold when Jennifer Valente defended her women’s omnium title in cycling track.
It then came down to the women’s basketball game, and the U.S. won gold for the eighth consecutive time.
The United States won a total of five medals on Sunday, including a silver in women’s freestyle 76kg (wrestling), a team silver in women’s volleyball and a bronze in men’s water polo.
Three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. beat China with 39 gold medals to 38. The U.S. won 113 medals in Tokyo. The Americans were far more dominant at the Rio Olympics in 2016, when they won 46 gold medals to 27 for Great Britain 26 for China.
Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint for online harassment against her
PARIS | Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment after a rain of criticism and false claims about her sex during the Paris Olympics, her lawyer said Sunday.
Khelif, who will be Algeria’s flag bearer in the closing ceremony, won gold Friday in the women’s welterweight division, becoming a new hero in her native Algeria and bringing global attention to women’s boxing.
The complaint was filed Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, alleging “aggravated cyber-harassment” targeting Khelif, lawyer Nabil Boudi said. In a statement, he described it as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
It is now up to prosecutors to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint doesn’t name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.
Khelif was unwittingly thrust into a worldwide clash over gender identity and regulation in sports after her first fight, when Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out just seconds into the match, citing pain from opening punches. False claims that Khelif was transgender or a man erupted online, and the International Olympic Committee defended her and denounced those peddling misinformation. Khelif said that the spread of misconceptions about her “harms human dignity.”
Earlier, Kirsty Burrows, an official in charge of the IOC’s unit for safeguarding and mental health, filed a complaint with French authorities saying she received death threats and harassment online following a news conference in Paris at which she had spoken in defense of Khelif.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said it received Burrows’ complaint on Aug. 4 and agents from the National Unit for the Fight against Online Hate are investigating the alleged offenses, including death threats, public provocations aimed at attacking a person and cyberbullying. Under French law, the crimes, if proven, carry prison sentences that range from two to five years and fines ranging from 30,000 to 45,000 euros.
The Olympics-banned International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan from the world championships last year, claiming the two fighters failed unspecified eligibility tests for women’s competition. The IOC has called the arbitrary sex tests that the sport’s governing body imposed on the two women irretrievably flawed and has defended both boxers since the start of the Paris Games.
Experts say the scrutiny of Khelif and Lin reflected disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination toward female athletes of color when it comes to sex testing and false claims that they are male or transgender.
Amanda Anisimova beats Emma Navarro in National Bank Open
TORONTO | Amanda Anisimova beat eighth-seeded Emma Navarro 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 on Sunday in an all-American semifinal in the windy National Bank Open.
“Huge accomplishment,” said Anisimova, ranked 132nd in the world. “Something I’ve been working really hard toward.”
She will face third-seeded defending champion Jessica Pegula in the final Monday in another all-American match. Pegula beat No. 14 Diana Shnaider of Russia 6-4, 6-3.
Anisimova took a mental-health break from tennis last year. The 22-year-old player has two WTA Tour titles — in 2019 in Bogota and 2022 in Melbourne.
“I didn’t want to finish my career on that note,” she said. “I had sacrificed so much and given so much to the sport.”
She has beaten four top-20 players to reach the final — No. 3 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 12 Daria Kasatakina, No. 15 Navarro and No. 17 Anna Kalinskaya. On Saturday, Anisimova beat second-seeded Sabalenka 6-2, 6-2 in the quarterfinals for her first victory over a top-10 player in nearly two years.
“I was trying to fight,” Anisimova said. “I’m just happy with how I was able to pull through.”
Play at York University was delayed by rain for a little over an hour just before Navarro and Anisimova were scheduled start.
—From AP reports
