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Paris Olympics Roundup: Australia takes early lead against U.S. on Day 1 of swimming

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PARIS (AP) — Australia took the lead in its swimming showdown against the United States at the Paris Olympics by claiming two of three gold medal s on the first full day of competition.

Ariarne Titmus turned one of the most anticipated races of the Games into a blowout when she left Katie Ledecky in her wake at La Defense Arena. Titmus led from start to finish in the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night.

The Australian star known as “The Terminator” handed Ledecky a second straight Olympic defeat in an event the American won at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Titmus faced her stiffest challenge from 17-year-old Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh, but she won comfortably as McIntosh claimed the silver. Ledecky settled for bronze.

Titmus swept the 200 and 400 free in Tokyo, and she is going for the same double in Paris. Ledecky is going for a double in the 800 and 1,500.

Australia then made it 2 for 2 against the Americans in the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay, claiming its fourth straight Olympic title in that event.

The quartet of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris set an Olympic record with a winning time of 3 minutes, 28.92 seconds.

The Americans — Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske and Simone Manuel — rallied to take silver. China took bronze.

The U.S. finally got its first gold in the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay. The Americans were anchored by Caeleb Dressel, who won the eighth gold medal of his career.

Australia took the silver.

CHINA TAKES FIRST GOLD OF GAMES

The first gold medal of the Paris Olympics went to China when Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao beat South Korea’s Keum Jihyeon and Park Hajun in the final of the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event Saturday morning.

Shortly before that, Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev became the first medalists of the games when they beat Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich 17-5 for the bronze.

WEMBY’S DEBUT

Victor Wembanyama did not disappoint in his Olympic debut as the NBA Rookie of the Year had 19 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots for host France in a 78-66 win over Brazil.

The game was played in front of a sold-out crowd in support of last year’s top pick in the NBA draft.

Wembanyama and the French team skipped the opening ceremony in Paris on Friday night to rest for their Saturday game in Lille, which is about an hour from Paris by train.

FRANCE’S FIRST MEDALS

Luka Mkheidze and Shirine Boukli won France’s first two medals of the Olympics when Mkheidze claimed silver and Boukli earned bronze in judo.

Mkheidze lost 1-0 to Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan in the final of the men’s 60-kilogram division — a disappointing result for the raucous crowd at Champ-de-Mars Arena. About 30 minutes before Mkheidze’s loss, Boukli claimed France’s first medal of its home Olympics with a victory over Spain’s Laura Martinez in a bronze-medal match.

Paris will have plenty of chances to cheer on its vaunted judo team, which has a competitor in all 14 weight classes in these Olympics. France is one of the world’s top judo nations.

CANADA SOCCER SCANDAL

FIFA deducted six points from Canada in the Olympics women’s soccer tournament and banned three coaches for one year each for a drone spying scandal.

Two assistant coaches were caught using drones to spy on New Zealand’s practices before their opening game last Wednesday. Head coach Bev Priestman, who led Canada to the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021, already was suspended by the national soccer federation and then removed from the Olympic tournament. She is now banned from all soccer for one year.

FIFA fast-tracked its own disciplinary process by asking its appeals judges to handle the case.

TENNIS CONTROVERSY

Novak Djokovic was perplexed by the Olympics rules after his 6-0, 6-1 rout in less than an hour against an overmatched Matthew Ebden, a 36-year-old doubles player from Australia who hadn’t competed in a tour-level, main-draw singles match since June 2022.

Djokovic felt other singles players deserved a spot at the Olympics instead of Ebden.

Ebden was in Paris to compete in men’s doubles, where he’s been as high as No. 1 and currently is No. 3 and has won two major championships. That made him available for the singles competition when 16th-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark pulled out because of a wrist injury.

Ebden was not the first doubles player asked to fill in, but he was the first to say yes. He hadn’t even practiced singles in about two years until playing a tiebreaker in training on Friday.

In other tennis action, Rafael Nadal is not sure whether he will compete in singles, saying after he paired with Carlos Alcaraz to win their first-round doubles match Saturday night that he wants to “make the smartest decision possible to have the best chances to bring (a) medal back home.”

Nadal’s first match in singles, against Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, is scheduled for Sunday.

Also, Angelique Kerber eliminated Naomi Osaka 7-5, 6-3 in the first round in a matchup between former No. 1-ranked players with multiple Grand Slam titles.

RAIN DISRUPTIONS

Rain continued from the opening ceremony through the first full day of competition and caused several postponements and delays at the Paris Olympics.

Men’s street skateboarding was supposed to start Saturday but was pushed to Monday because of the showers. The start of play in the scheduled tennis matches on the 10 smaller courts at Roland Garros was delayed because of rain, but action started as scheduled in the two main stadiums that have retractable roofs.

The rain could threaten the water quality for swimming in the Seine when the triathlon begins Tuesday with the men’s event at the Alexander III bridge next to Grand Palais.

10-TIME OLYMPIAN

Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze made history as the first woman to compete at 10 Olympic Games in a career which began representing the Soviet Union. She has competed at every Summer Olympics since 1988, when she won gold as a 19-year-old Soviet prodigy.

She set her latest record when she stepped into the shooting range for qualification in the women’s 10-meter air pistol. Salukvadze placed 38th and didn’t advance to Sunday’s eight-shooter final. She gets another shot at a medal Friday in qualification for the 25-meter pistol event.

In a career spanning five decades, the 55-year-old has competed on three different Olympic teams: the Soviet Union in 1988, then the Unified Team which was organized for ex-Soviet athletes in Barcelona in 1992 after the Soviet Union collapsed.

She has represented her home country of Georgia following its independence for the last eight Olympics.

CHINA’S DIVING QUEST

China has ruled diving for decades and came to Paris seeking to sweep all eight gold medals. The nation got off to a perfect start Saturday when the team of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen won gold in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard with 337.68 points on five dives.

Three years ago in Tokyo, China won seven of eight gold medals. It has never pulled off the elusive gold sweep.

HUNGARIAN FENCER LOSES

An era-defining streak in Olympic fencing was snapped by an upset when Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi lost his opening bout while chasing a fourth consecutive gold medal.

Szilagyi won gold medals in men’s individual saber in 2012, 2016 and 2021 and was trying to become the only fencer in history to win a fourth.

Instead, the streak ended in Szilagyi’s first bout of the Paris Games as he was beaten 15-8 by the 27th-seeded Canadian Fares Arfa in one of the biggest upsets so far at the 2024 Olympics.

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Alouettes receiver Philpot announces he’ll be out for the rest of season

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Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.

The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.

“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.

Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.

The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.

Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Tua Tagovailoa sustains concussion after hitting head on turf in Dolphins’ loss to Bills

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.

Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.

The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.

“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”

Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.

“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”

Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.

“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”

Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.

When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.

McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.

Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.

Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.

Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.

Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.

Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.

“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”

Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.

He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.

The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.

Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.

His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.

“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”

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Too much? Many Americans feel the need to limit their political news, AP-NORC/USAFacts poll finds

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NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.

It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.

While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.

The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.

“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.

Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’

Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.

Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.

“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”

Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.

But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.

It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.

“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”

Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media

In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.

White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.

Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.

“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”

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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

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