(TOKYO) — In his second consecutive Paralympic Games, Egypt’s table tennis player and amputee Ibrahim Hamadtou continues to produce jaw-dropping shots using only his mouth.
The 48-year-old lost to South Korea’s Park Hongkyu and China’s Chen Chao in the men’s singles contest at the Tokyo Paralympics, but the significance of his participation goes well beyond the results.
After losing both of his arms in a train accident at the age of 10 back in 1983, Hamadtou embarked on an inspirational table tennis career after being stirred up by a negative comment from a friend.
“I was in the club where I was officiating a match between two of my friends. They disagreed on a point, when I counted the point in favor of one of them the other player told me, do not interfere as you will never be able to play,” Hamadtou said in an interview with the International Table Tennis Federation’s website last year.
“It was that statement that fired me up to decide to play table tennis.”
Astonishing images of Hamadtou holding the paddle in his mouth and striking back at opponents went viral in 2014 when he made an appearance at the World Team Championships as a guest of honor, lining up against the world’s finest.
Two years later, he made his Paralympic debut at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, once again displaying his unique skills.
When serving, Hamadtou flicks the ball up with his right foot and hits it powerfully with the racket, which he holds between his teeth. It’s a spectacular technique that he seems to be perfecting.
“It took me nearly a year of practice to get used to holding the racket with [my] mouth and making the serve; with practice and playing regularly this skill was improved,” he added.
A father of three, Hamadtou was born in 1973 in Damietta, Egypt.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 13. LA Angels 1
Chi White Sox 10. Toronto 7
Cleveland 10, Texas 6
Boston 12, Minnesota 2
NY Yankees 7, Oakland 6
Kansas City 6, Seattle 4
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 5, Milwaukee 1
Pittsburgh 11, St. Louis 7
San Francisco 3, NY Mets 2
Miami 7, Washington 5
Arizona 8, Philadelphia 7
LA Dodgers 4, San Diego 0
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Las Vegas 78, Atlanta 71
Dallas 82, Washington 77
Connecticut 76, Los Angeles 72
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
St. Louis 3, Detroit 2
Tampa Bay 7, Philadelphia 4
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Houston 6, Kansas City 5
Cleveland 7, Texas 2
Toronto 3, Chi White Sox 1
Baltimore 10, L.A. Angels 6
Minnesota 9, Boston 6
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Chi Cubs 5, Colorado 2
San Francisco 3, NY Mets 2
Arizona 5, Pittsburgh 2
Miami 4, Washington 3
Colorado 13, Chi Cubs 10
Milwaukee 4, Cincinnati 1
LA Dodgers 5, San Diego 3
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Phoenix 106, New York 79
(NEW YORK) — Tennis star Serena Williams will not compete in this year’s U.S. Open tournament, another setback in her quest to win her first Grand Slam title since giving birth to her daughter.
Williams, who will turn 40 next month, announced on social media that a torn hamstring injury will keep her from competing at Flushing Meadows in New York.
“After careful consideration and following the advice of my doctors and medical team, I have decided to withdraw from the US Open to allow my body to heal completely from a torn hamstring,” Williams wrote on Instagram. “New York is one of the most exciting cities in the world and one of my favorite places to play — I’ll miss seeing the fans but will be cheering everyone from afar.”
Williams has not competed since injuring her right leg in in her first-round match at Wimbledon in June, according to ESPN.
Williams’ U.S. Open withdrawal ends her bid this year to win a Grand Slam tournament, which would be her 24th Grand Slam title and her first since giving birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., in 2017.
The four Grand Slam tournaments in tennis are the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, the French Open and the Australian Open.
Winning a 24th Grand Slam title would tie Williams with Margaret Court for single majors titles.
It would also make her a member of the very small club of professional tennis player moms who have won Grand Slam titles, joining only Court, Evonne Goolagong and Kim Clijsters.
The last mom to win a Grand Slam title was Clijsters in 2009 at the Australian Open, according to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).
Williams won her first singles title since becoming a mom in January 2020.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Tampa Bay 3, Philadelphia 1
NY Yankees 5, Atlanta 4
Detroit 4, St. Louis 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Seattle 5, Oakland 1
Chi White Sox 5, Toronto 2
Texas 7, Cleveland 3
LA Angels 14, Baltimore 8
Boston 11, Minnesota 9
Houston 4, Kansas City 0
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Pittsburgh 4, Arizona 2
San Francisco 8, NY Mets 0
Washington 5, Miami 1
Milwaukee 7, Cincinnati 4
LA Dodgers 5, San Diego 2
Colorado at Chi Cubs (Postponed)
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Connecticut 76, Las Vegas 62
Chi 86, Atlanta 79
Washington 78, Los Angeles 68
Minnesota 76, Seattle 70
Toru Hanai/Getty Images for International Paralympic Committee
(TOKYO) — A record number of LGBTQ athletes will compete at the Paralympics in Tokyo, which are set to kick off on Tuesday.
“LGBTQ people are more likely to live with disabilities and to face systemic discrimination on both fronts; the visibility brought by the Paralympics and its talented athletes helps fight that stigma,” Rich Ferraro, communications officer at GLAAD, said in a press release. “Every athlete, regardless of ability, gender, race, or sexual orientation, deserves a chance to participate in sports and to represent their communities with pride.”
According to Outsports, which tracks LGBTQ athletes at each Olympic Games, the number of out athletes is at least 28, more than doubling the number of those who competed in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The number represents at least a dozen sports and eight countries.
Robyn Love and Laurie Williams, who compete on Team Great Britain on the women’s wheelchair basketball team, got engaged in February 2020 and Love reflected on their journey as “team mates & soul mates.”
“I couldn’t imagine what my GB journey would have been like if Laurie and I weren’t together … I don’t think I would have progressed so quickly without her pushing me so hard, I can still hear “one more push” in my head every time I’m defending,” she wrote in a belated Instagram Pride month post. “It hasn’t always been plain sailing but competing at the highest level under incredible pressure has made our relationship strong and I cannot wait to compete in Tokyo together,” she added.
According to Outsports, this year was the first year that athletes reached out to the outlet, asking to be added to the list. Americans athletes on the list include Monica Sereda (cycling), Asya Miller (goalball), Laura Goodkind (USA) and Hallie Smith (rowing), Monique Matthews (sitting volleyball), Hailey Danz (triathlon), Kaitlyn Eaton (wheelchair basketball) and Terry Hayes (wheelchair fencing).
The majority of out LGBTQ Paralympians are women, while there are two athletes on Team Australia who identify as nonbinary — Maria “Maz” Strong, who competes in seated shot put and wheelchair racer Robyn Lambird, according to the list.
Lambird, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age 9, shared her excitement on Instagram as she arrived in Tokyo ready to compete, writing, “When the dream becomes a reality.”
“I love seeing our out Paralympians highlighted because it shows that while we still have a ways to go, as a society, we have become more accepting therefore people are able to be their authentic selves and feel safe,” Team USA sitting volleyball player Monique Matthews told Outsports. “It gives me great pride to be part of such a diverse trailblazing group of people.”
The Paralympics is the largest sporting event globally for people with disabilities and according to the International Paralympic Committee, the first Paralympic Games were held in Rome, Italy, in 1960 featuring 400 athletes from 23 countries.
This year, the Games will feature over 3,500 athletes from at least 134 nations, including a Refugee Paralympic Team, which represents more than 82 million people around the world who were displaced and forced to flee their countries due to war, natural disasters and human rights abuses.
This year’s Paralympic Games were initially scheduled for the summer of 2020, but were rescheduled to take place in the summer of 2021, along with the Olympics, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Olympic Summer Games, which wrapped up earlier this month, were also groundbreaking for the LGBTQ community, with a record number of out LGBTQ athletes competing — at least 185, up from only 56 at the 2016 Games in Rio, according to Outsports. The Tokyo Olympics were also the first in which transgender athletes qualified to compete.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Atlanta 3, Baltimore 1
Kansas City 9, Chi Cubs 1
San Francisco 2, Oakland 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 9, Chi White Sox 0
Detroit 5, Toronto 3
Seattle 6, Houston 3
Cleveland 3, LA Angels 0
Texas at Boston (Postponed)
Minnesota at NY Yankees (Postponed)
—— NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 3, Miami 1
St. Louis 3, Pittsburgh 0
Milwaukee 7, Washington 3
Arizona 8, Colorado 4
Philadelphia 7, San Diego 4
NY Mets 7, LA Dodgers 2
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE PRESEASON
Cleveland 17, NY Giants 13
San Francisco 15, LA Chargers 10
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Los Angeles 86, New York 83
Seattle 85, Washington 78
(NEW YORK) — The NFL is trying to tackle the issue of COVID-19 vaccination, but some players are calling time out.
Miami Dolphins tight end Adam Shaheen, whose Twitter location says “somewhere without a mask,” told reporters earlier this month that he won’t allow the league to “strong-arm” him into getting the vaccine and criticized the NFL for “taking away freedoms of unvaccinated guys.”
And former NFL quarterback Derek Anderson slammed the league’s strict rules on Twitter, saying he would “retire tomorrow” if he was still playing.
“This is total b——- @nfl. So if a vaccinated player contracts which they will ,no consequences? That’s ridiculous … Let them make their own decisions,” he wrote.
The tensions the league is grappling with, including personal liberty and safety concerns, appear to be a microcosm of the debates playing out around the country about COVID-19 vaccination, mandates and other rules from employers.
“Every conversation that goes along blue and red, [Democrat] versus Republican, finds its way into the NFL,” said LZ Granderson, an ABC News contributor, sports journalist and longtime columnist for ESPN. “The former president politicized the virus, politicized the vaccination, and continues to politicize the conversation in general, but he’s not alone. You have governors doing the same thing. You have members of Congress doing the same thing, you have local officials doing the same thing.”
A spokesperson for the NFL told ABC News on Thursday that the “current player vaccination rate is around 92 percent.” Although the league did not provide breakdowns by team, some are sharing the vaccination rate of their players like the Atlanta Falcons, who announced this week that the team is fully vaccinated.
And while the league is overwhelmingly vaccinated, some players say they felt pressured to get a vaccine that, while deemed safe and effective, is not fully approved. Hesitance for a number of reasons has been a lingering issue in the U.S. that officials and the private sector have been trying to chip away at with a combination of incentives and penalties — efforts met with both praise and protest.
Under the agreement between the league and Players Association reached last month, players who choose not to get vaccinated will be required to wear masks at all facilities, undergo routine COVID testing and are at a risk of forfeiting games. Per the protocols, if a team has an outbreak due to unvaccinated players and games cannot be rescheduled during the 18-week season, the team would have to forfeit and be assessed a loss, which could impact playoff seedings.
Per the new guidelines, unvaccinated players who break COVID-19 protocols will be fined $14,650 for each incident, according to ESPN.
Vaccinated reluctantly
Some players admitted that they only got vaccinated due to the NFL’s COVID protocols, but they were not happy about it.
Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill said that he got vaccinated because “they’re going to try and make your life miserable” if you don’t.
“I think it’s a personal decision for each of us,” he told reporters last month. “They are trying to force our hands and ultimately have forced a lot of hands by the protocols.”
Seattle Seahawks cornerback D.J. Reed tweeted last month that he didn’t want to get vaccinated but gave in because the NFL and the NFLPA “made getting the vaccine a competitive advantage” and he did not want to “hinder” his teammates.
J.C. Tretter, president of the NFL Players Association, said in a statement that although “we believe the vaccine is both safe and effective, players have the choice whether to take it or not. Unlike among the NFL coaching ranks or in other businesses, the vaccine is not mandated for NFL players.”
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, although there are some breakthrough cases among vaccinated people because “no vaccine is 100 percent effective,” but those cases are “mostly mild or without symptoms,” whereas the unvaccinated “are the ones that are vulnerable to getting severe illness that might lead to hospitalizations and in some cases death.”
“We have 100 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not getting vaccinated. We are seeing an outbreak of the unvaccinated,” Fauci told ABC News’ “This Week” earlier this month. “… the unvaccinated, by not being vaccinated, are allowing the propagation and the spread of the outbreak which ultimately impacts everybody.”
On the fence
The NFL said earlier this month that 90% of its players are either fully vaccinated or have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, but some have remained non committal.
Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who has contracted COVID-19 twice, said that while he is considering getting the vaccine, it’s a “personal decision” and one that he’s consulting with his doctors about.
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, one of the most outspoken critics of the vaccine policy, told reporters in July that he is “not anti or pro-vax,” but is “pro-choice” and that he believes it is too soon to know if the vaccine, which does not have full FDA approval yet, is safe.
“Without having all the proper information a player can feel misguided and unsure about a very personal choice. It makes a player feel unprotected,” he said.
According to the CDC, “Serious side effects that could cause a long-term health problem are extremely unlikely following any vaccination, including COVID-19 vaccination.”
In addition, Fauci said last week that he is hopeful that the FDA will fully approve the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the month.
The NFL’s vaccination policy for coaches is even stricter.
Tier 1 and 2 employees — including coaches, trainers, assistant coaches and operations employees — who don’t get vaccinated would not be allowed to interact with players in person, the NFL announced in June. And barring a religious or medical reason for opting out, would lose their Tier 1 status and would not be able to have face-to-face contact with the players.
The protocols already led to two coaches parting ways with the NFL over these vaccination guidelines, according to ESPN.
Threading the needle
Asked about the lingering hesitancy to get vaccinated, Dr. Fauci lamented the “unfortunate” political divide over the vaccine.
“There’s this ideological divide that we have where people for reasons that are not based on public health principles who do not want to get vaccinated — libertarian feelings, feelings of not wanting to be told what to do,” Fauci told “GMA3” last Thursday. “It’s so unfortunate because we’re dealing with a public health crisis and you address a public health crisis by public health principles. Ideology, divisiveness has no place in this and yet in many areas it seems to dominate.”
Granderson said that by not making vaccines a requirement, the NFL is trying to “thread the needle” on a divisive issue.
“Trying to please both sides means you don’t please either, you know, you end up with two disappointing sizes, sides. So what the NFL needs to do is take a stance, heavily rooted in science and move on,” he added.
Some teams like the New Orleans Saints are requiring fans to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test before attending games. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Raiders became the first team to mandate vaccination for fans, setting up vaccination sites at the stadium and allowing entry to the newly vaccinated if they wear masks.
(NEW YORK) — Major League Baseball has placed former New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway on the ineligible list through the end of 2022 following its investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
The Athletic originally reported on the details against Callaway in February.
“Having reviewed all of the available evidence, I have concluded that Mr. Callaway violated MLB’s policies, and that placement on the ineligible list is warranted,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “We want to thank the many people who cooperated with our Department of Investigations [DOI] in their work, which spanned Mr. Callaway’s positions with three different clubs. The clubs that employed Mr. Callaway each fully cooperated with DOI, including providing emails and assisting with identifying key witnesses.”
Being on the ineligible list means Callaway cannot be employed by a major league or minor league club.
He can apply for reinstatement following the 2022 season.
Callaway was working for the Los Angeles Angels as a pitching coach but was fired from the team on Wednesday following the MLB’s statement. He had been suspended by the team in February.
In the Athletic report, five women accused Callaway of aggressively pursuing them, including three who said he sent inappropriate photos, and one who said Callaway asked her to send nude photos in return.
The allegations took place over five years and included his time with the Cleveland Indians and New York Mets.
Callaway was Cleveland’s pitching coach from 2013-2017 and New York’s manager from 2018-2019.
