(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Miami Marlins 6, Baltimore Orioles 3 N.Y. Mets 3, N.Y. Yankees 2 Philadelphia Phillies 3, Minnesota Twins 0 Arizona Diamondbacks 6, Kansas City Royals 2 Boston Red Sox 6, Colorado Rockies 0
AMERICAN LEAGUE Cleveland Guardians 5, Detroit Tigers 4 L.A. Angels 5, Seattle Mariners 1 Tampa Bay Rays 4, Toronto Blue Jays 2 Texas Rangers 3, Chicago White Sox 2 Houston Astros 2, Oakland Athletics 8
NATIONAL LEAGUE Cincinnati Reds At Atlanta Braves (PPD) San Diego Padres, 4 Washington Nationals 0 St. Louis Cardinals 2, Pittsburgh Pirates 1 Milwaukee Brewers 1, Chicago Cubs 0 San Francisco Giants 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 5
Simone Biles competes in the uneven bars during the Women’s Day Four of 2024 US Olympic Gymnastics Trials at the Target Center, June 30, 2024, in Minneapolis. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — American gymnast Simone Biles is considered by many to be the G.O.A.T — the Greatest Of All Time — and for good reason.
“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles,” she told reporters at the 2016 Olympics.
Here’s a look at Biles’ historic gymnastics career thus far as she heads to her third Olympic Games, this year in Paris, France:
Most decorated gymnast of all time
Her rise to fame began in the wake of the 2012 Olympics, which Biles was too young to qualify for.
In 2013, at the age of 16, she secured four medals — two golds — in her first appearance at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
In 2014, she won four golds and a silver at the competition. In 2015, she scored another four gold medals and a bronze. In 2018, she won four golds, one silver, and one bronze. In 2019, she won five gold medals. In 2023, she won four golds and one silver.
Overall, she’s scored 30 world titles, 23 as a gold medal winner, according to the official Olympics website.
In her first Olympic Games in 2016, Biles won four gold medals and one bronze. In Tokyo, she won one silver and one bronze before sitting out for the rest of the competition to focus on her mental and physical health.
Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history — male or female — according to the Olympics. In all, she has 37 world and Olympic medals combined.
She has five moves named after her
Biles now has five signature moves named after her in three different events: on the floor, on vault, and on the balance beam.
“Many people aren’t even attempting to do them because there’s such high difficulty high risk maneuvers, and she does them with complete ease and effort,” Dominique Dawes, a three-time Olympian and 18-year gymnastics veteran. “It’s amazing to watch what she’s doing. And she does it with a smile on her face.”
For a move to be named after an athlete in gymnastics, the gymnast has to submit a video of them performing the move to the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique Women’s Technical Committee.
The committee determines the difficulty of the skill, and if it receives a high enough difficulty score, it is then eligible to be named.
Then, a gymnast must perform the move without “a major fault” at an international competition.
The “Biles on the floor” — first successfully completed by Biles on the world stage in 2013 at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships — is a double layout with a half-twist, which means that her body remains straight and elongated as she flips twice.
Her second signature move on the floor, “Biles II,” was first successfully completed on the world stage in 2019. For this move, Biles performs a triple-double, meaning she Biles flips twice while twisting three times before hitting the ground.
The Biles on the vault is a round-off, into a back hand-spring with a half turn, completing the move by twisting twice in a somersault. It one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics, with a difficulty score of 6.4.
Biles II on the vault is the most recent move to be named after the athlete. In 2023, she became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike, a move that consists of a backflip off the vault and two full rotations in a pike position before landing.
The Biles on the balance beam, completed in 2019, features a double-double dismount from the beam — two flips and two twists.
Dawes was a gymnast during the old ways of scoring — which is when gymnasts aimed simply for a “perfect 10.” Now, gymnasts are scored on two metrics — the perfect 10 of execution and the open-ended scoring of difficulty that gymnasts have free reign of collecting points on.
Dawes said that with the old way of scoring, there was “no need to push yourself beyond that value.” Now, “sky is the limit” for athletes like Biles.
“It really is Simone versus herself.” Dawes said. “That’s really what makes her one of the greatest of all time … Back then they used to cap our scores. And so now with this new scoring system, the sky is the limit for athletes like Simone, who’s very talented. And so if she does a higher, difficult maneuver on any of the different pieces of apparatus, she’ll actually get credit for it.”
Prioritizing her mental and physical health
Simone Biles pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics before finishing the individual all-around competition and the team final following a shocking stumble on vault.
“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being. Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
Her exit shined a light on mental health among elite athletes who face intense pressures as the world watches. She later also discussed how her exit was tied to her struggle to recover mentally after being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.
Biles has also been outspoken about experiencing depression and having to take anxiety medication in the fallout of the Nassar abuse.
“As a recent competitor in the Tokyo Games who was a survivor of this horror, I can assure you the impacts of this man’s abuse are not over or ever forgotten,” Biles said at a 2021 Congressional hearing. “The announcement in the spring of 2020 that the Tokyo Games were to be postponed for a year meant that I would be going to the gym, to training, to therapy, living daily among the reminders of this story for another 365 days.”
Biles qualified in all six of the women’s gymnastics finals at the Tokyo Olympics and was expected to win an unprecedented six gold medals. The goal was to become the first woman since 1968 to win back-to-back titles in the all-around.
“I just never felt like this going into a competition before,” Biles said at a press conference Tuesday following the team final. “I tried to go out here and have fun, and warm up in the back went a little bit better, but once I came out here I was like, ‘No, mental is not there.’”
“It’s been really stressful this Olympic Games, just as a whole,” said Biles to reporters at the time. “It’s been a long week. It’s been a long Olympic process. It’s been a long year.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
AMERICAN LEAGUE N.Y. Yankees 9, Tampa Bay Rays 1 Detroit Tigers 8, Cleveland Guardians 2 Texas Rangers 4, Chicago White Sox 3 Oakland Athletics 4, Houston Astros 0 Los Angeles Angels 3, Seattle Mariners 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE Pittsburgh Pirates 2, St. Louis Cardinals 1 Final N.Y. Mets 6, Miami Marlins 4 Final Cincinnati Reds 4, Atlanta Braves 1 Final Chicago Cubs 3, Milwaukee Brewers 1 San Francisco Giants 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 3
INTERLEAGUE Minnesota Twins 7, Philadelphia Phillies 2 Kansas City Royals 10, Arizona Diamondbacks 4 Boston Red Sox 8, Colorado Rockies 9
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE San Diego 2, Cleveland 1 Minnesota 7, Milwaukee 8 Boston 6, LA Dodgers 9
AMERICAN LEAGUE Baltimore 2, Texas 3 Chicago White Sox 1, Kansas City 4 Detroit 4, Toronto 5 NY Yankees 4, Tampa Bay 6
NATIONAL LEAGUE San Francisco 3, Colorado 2 Arizona 1, Chicago Cubs 2 NY Mets 2, Miami 4 St Louis 6, Atlanta 2 Philadelphia 6, Pittsburgh 0 Cincinnati 2, Washington 5
(ARLINGTON, Texas) — Ingrid Andress is apologizing for her rendition of the national anthem at the 2024 Home Run Derby on Monday night that has since gone viral online.
“I’m not gonna b——- y’all, I was drunk last night,” Andress wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday, referring to her performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
Jelly Roll, Shaboozey and more country stars reveal best advice they ever received
“I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need,” she continued. “That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is I hear it’s super fun. xo, Ingrid.”
Andress, a four-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, is best known for her song “More Hearts Than Mine” and her Sam Hunt collaboration “Wishful Drinking.”
According to her website, Andress’ next shows are both at music festivals, Aug. 3 at Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Oct. 4 at Country Calling in Ocean City, Maryland.
“Good Morning America” has reached out to Andress’ representative for comment.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service.
Rufus the hawk and owner Donna Davis talk to ABC News from the stands of Centre Court. Via ABC News.
(LONDON) — Meandering within the manicured lawns and historic courts of Wimbledon are Rufus and Flo, a couple who are incredibly popular with players and fans alike, yet simultaneously unassuming and vital workers whose sole function is to keep the public safe and the tennis uninterrupted.
With a combined 20 years of experience working at Wimbledon, they know exactly what they are doing when they start work each day of the two-week tournament in southwest London: Rufus watches the skies while Flo keeps an eye on the grounds.
The biggest difference about Rufus and Flo, compared to most of the other employees at Wimbledon, is that Rufus is a 16-year-old hawk and Flo is a 4-year-old Labrador Retriever.
Rufus, famous in his own right with over 5,000 followers on Instagram and has also been called “the world’s most notable bird” and “one of Britain’s best-known birds” in the media, has a singular responsibility — keep Wimbledon clear of pigeons at all costs.
“Rufus is ‘Chief Pigeon Deterrent’ here at Wimbledon,” Donna Davis told ABC News while standing on Centre Court on the middle Sunday of the 2024 Championships. “Often the pigeons can go up in the rafters and then sneak around and build little nests. They generally have a really comfortable time up there and then come down when the grass seed has been laid to munch on the seed. It’s like caviar to them. Rufus is here to stop all of that.”
Davis shares a unique bond with Rufus that is built on trust as well as her keen understanding of avian behavior and Rufus’ training relies heavily on food motivation.
“We build up that loyalty and trust, ensuring I always have food for him,” says Davis. “He even does what I call his ‘Wimbledon wiggle’ — which is when he shakes his tail before he flies off.”
Though essentially a wild bird, Rufus is trained to return to Davis, seeing her as his most reliable food source. Davis also makes sure to maintain Rufus at the right weight, something that is crucial to their relationship and ensures that he finds returning to Davis more appealing than expending energy hunting for his own meals.
Davis has worked at Wimbledon now with Rufus and his predecessor, Hamish, for 24 years this year but her career at the All England Club all began because she saw a solution to a massive problem that she noticed while watching the 1999 Wimbledon men’s semifinal between Pete Sampras and Tim Henman.
“During that match, the pigeons kept coming down to Centre Court in between points to munch on the seed that had been laid and Sampras kept having to bat them off the baseline with his racquet,” Davis told ABC News. “And of course at that critical point, if you’re getting distracted, that’s the last thing you need, and it can cost you the game or the match. So I was watching and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to give them a call.’ I did exactly that and they said, ‘come down, show us what you can do’ and here we are, 24 years later.”
Meanwhile, Flo, the 4-year-old Labrador Retriever, has a complimentary — but no less important — role to Rufus as she patrols the grounds to keep the perimeter of the 42-acre complex secure and the more than half-a-million people who come to Wimbledon each year safe.
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Flo and owner Mark Millsand together in the stands on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Via ABC News.
Training a dog like Flo for her specific role is an intensive process, her owner and handler Mark Millsand told ABC News.
Her handler explains that it typically takes about ten weeks of intensive, but relatively quick, training to get dogs like Flo up to speed with the kind of work they are doing, the process designed to ensure that the dogs are sufficiently prepared for their roles — much like passing a driving test but gaining proficiency through experience.
Flo’s working day at Wimbledon is long and demanding. Spanning around 12 intense working hours. Millsand ensures she gets regular breaks to prevent overheating and he says that keeping her alert and ready to respond at a moment’s notice is crucial, especially if a sudden search operation is required.
However, Flo does have plenty of opportunities to interact with the public on their walks and she has quickly become a favorite among visitors.
“We have a lot of returning visitors here every year,” said Millsand. ”They seem to remember the dogs. They get a glazed recollection of our faces and then they think, Oh, I remember Flo.”
Flo might be a working dog with an intense focus on her daily duties but she can’t pull a fast one on Millsand, who is more than just her handler because Flo is a family dog, a pet first and foremost.
“She is absolutely not this well behaved all of the time,” Millsand joked. “Unfortunately, she is very fond of strawberries, which means this is the wrong environment for her to be in with Wimbledon’s strawberries and cream. If she sees people eating strawberries, she can get very friendly.”
Not to be outdone by Rufus, even though Flo doesn’t have an Instagram account, she has had plenty of brushes with fame herself and got to meet Her Majesty Queen Camilla at The Championships last year.
Each of them also, notably, have side hustles. Flo will patrol football matches and sets of television shows while Rufus can be seen high above the skies in central London keeping Westminster Abbey free from pesky pigeons.
Historically, animals have been present at Wimbledon, acting as vital employees since before the tournament was founded in 1877. In the early years of the tournament, ponies and horses were used to level the surface of the grass to a pristine standard by pulling a large roller, even wearing leather boots so as not to trample the freshly smooth surface or damage the grass.
But not all creatures have been so warmly welcomed at Wimbledon over the years, like back in 1982 when a swarm of bees in disrupted the second set of the third round match between Americans Pam Shriver and Kathy Rinaldi, engulfing both of them. Rinaldi was stung on the arm and Shriver, quite considerately, removed the sting.
Over the years, Wimbledon has also had interruptions by squirrels — in 1949 during the match between Hans van Swol of the Netherlands and Frenchman Bobby Abdesselam — sparrows, during the 1989 men’s semifinal between Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe, and — in the days before Rufus and Hamish — a mouse even interrupted play during the 1998 first round matchup between Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Mark Philippoussis.
For now, Rufus and Flo work in tandem, steadfast guardians of this tournament, making sure the competition can unfold as seamlessly as possible.
Their teamwork, however, involves a great irony. Rufus and Flo do not get along. At all.
“Rufus and the search dogs are not friends,” laughed Millsand. “I think it’s a healthy awareness of each other, but Flo wouldn’t stand a chance against Rufus even though she thinks she does, but she wouldn’t. I’d love to go over and talk to Donna Davis and have a chat with her about Rufus but we just can’t get close enough.”
Only 280 ball boys and girls will be chosen from around 1,500 applicants each year, including 170 new recruits and 110 recall applications from those who have served in the previous two Championships. — ABC News
(LONDON) — The first thing you should know about becoming a ball boy or ball girl at Wimbledon is that the process is no joke.
In fact, the process is so rigorous and intensive that the acceptance rate of those who get through the training program to work on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon is on par with being accepted into Oxford or Cambridge University, according to the latest enrolment data from Admission Report.
By the time the tournament comes around in early July, the ball boys and ball girls (BBGs) will have been training for five months, starting in the dead of winter in January or February at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club facility in Raynes Park, just three miles south of where they hope to end up at The Championships come summer.
Prospective BBGs train once a week with each session lasting approximately two-and-a-half hours. In these sessions, anywhere from 40 to 80 prospective children will train, focusing on general fitness, movement exercises and core skills needed to become a BBG such as rolling, feeding, receiving and game knowledge.
Training is continuous with the only reprieve coming during school holidays, meaning that the candidates have to be fully dedicated to becoming a BBG at a pace that can test both their commitment and endurance.
Alma Hamoud and Rudy Price — both 15-years-old and in their first year working at the tournament as BBGs — are two of the highly skilled ones who made it through the arduous process and took a few minutes in between matches to speak to ABC News on the middle Sunday of the 2024 Championships.
“Staying focused is the hardest thing because you have to watch every ball on every point and react,” Hamoud said. “But I feel really proud to go home and my parents tell me they have seen me on the TV.”
“It is a ton of fun to be a part of such a huge and famous event,” Price echoed. “I feel a lot of pride when I am on the court.”
Both admit, however, that nerves do come into play because they don’t want to make a mistake when TV cameras are everywhere and thousands of people in the crowd can see their every move. It should be noted that they were flawless on the court in the matches watched by ABC News.
The BBGs are essentially trained to be ghosts on the court, part of the pomp and circumstance of Wimbledon but never a feature. Their job is critical — vital — to the flow and pace of any of the more than 700 tennis matches played at Wimbledon as these unsung heroes seamlessly retrieve and deliver balls to the best tennis players in the world, ensuring that they can focus entirely on their game.
“I practiced rolling a lot at home and at sports centers near my house,” Hamoud said as she discussed the training and selection process from the 31 local schools that work with Wimbledon on the BBG program. “Only 10 students make it from each school so it is very competitive.”
The training includes specific routines for scoring — such as knowing which end the balls should be at a given score — and set pieces like marching, the procedures at the start and end of matches, tie breaks, ball changes and even suspended play — every eventuality that they might encounter on the courts.
Throughout the five-month training period, candidates are constantly assessed by the instructor team and are also expected to self-evaluate their performance by identifying key areas for their own improvement.
Sarah Goldson, who oversees the selection process for Wimbledon BBGs and has directed the training since 2012, is the one to make the final selections of approximately 280 BBGs that are chosen from around 1,500 applicants each year, including 170 new recruits and 110 recall applications from those who have served in the previous two Championships.
“I just felt a sense of relief when I found out I got the job,” said Price. “We put in so many hours of training so it all feels worth it now.”
The tradition of BBGs at Wimbledon dates back approximately 100 years to the 1920s and 1930s when ball boys were provided by Shaftesbury Homes, one of the U.K.’s oldest children’s charities and has been active since 1843. But that all changed after World War II starting in 1946 when volunteers from institutions and schools began to take on the role.
The landscape would radically shift again in 1977 when ball girls were introduced to the tournament. From there, it took just three years for mixed teams of ball boys and ball girls to become standard practice in 1980.
It took a further six years for ball girls to make their debut on Centre Court, marking a significant milestone in the tournament’s history just 38 years ago and 109 years after The Championships at Wimbledon began in 1877.
Now, as of 2024, the gender ratio is maintained at approximately 50% for girls and 50% for boys and there are no specific height or weight requirements for the role, though candidates must meet several criteria, including completing the training program, being physically fit and available for training, having thorough knowledge of tennis rules and scoring and prioritizing their commitment to the tournament.
To qualify for the full training program, candidates must score sufficiently across four areas of assessment during the winter trials where the competition is incredibly fierce, the difference between success and failure to becoming a BBG coming down to a mere one or two points in many cases.
Those who get through are then rewarded with even more intense training as the Championships approach and, in May, the BBGs move to training on grass towards the end of the program, including a dedicated grass court week on the Championships courts and during the wildcard playoffs for Wimbledon.
Furthermore, just two years ago in 2022, BBGs participated in the qualifying competition for Wimbledon for the first time, covering 10 to 12 courts over four days, a practice that Wimbledon says is now permanently integrated into the BBG calendar.
This, ultimately, prepares the BBGs for what they have been waiting for — the main event at Wimbledon starting in early July.
“We start at 10 a.m. and we will stay until the last court is closed,” said Hamoud. “It’s a very long day.”
Hamoud isn’t wrong. The BBGs routine involves alternating one-hour periods on and off the court, giving them enough time to take breaks and while ensuring they remain alert and focused throughout the day.
For Hamoud and Price, who both grew up as tennis fans, being on the same courts with giants of the sport is an experience they’ll never forget and even though the demands on their time and energy can be heavy, neither of them would trade the experience for anything.
“I hope I get to see Djokovic,” Hamoud told ABC News. “I really want to see Andy Murray, he is a British legend,” echoed Price.
Both are aware that their experience can open doors to future opportunities within the sport, from playing to coaching to sports management, but whatever comes next and how they’re inspired following the 2024 Championships at Wimbledon is up to them.
After all, Hamoud and Price are getting their start exactly the same way a couple of former ball boys did who you may have heard of — seven-time Grand Slam winner John McEnroe and 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer.
Said Federer in an interview upon his retirement from the game in 2022 as one of the greatest tennis players ever to have played the sport: “At heart, I am always going to be a ball boy.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Toronto Blue Jays 5, San Francisco Giants 3 Chicago Cubs 8, Baltimore Orioles 0 Houston Astros 6, Miami Marlins 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Detroit Tigers 10, Cleveland Guardians 1 Boston Red Sox 7, Oakland Athletics 0 Tampa Bay Rays 5, N.Y. Yankees 4 Seattle Mariners at Los Angeles Angels (TBA)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati Reds 8, Colorado Rockies 1 N.Y. Mets 7, Washington Nationals 0 Pittsburgh Pirates 1, Milwaukee Brewers 0 Philadelphia Phillies 5, Los Angeles Dodgers 1 Atlanta Braves at Arizona Diamondbacks (TBA)
