Tommy Ford, the top American man with three World Cup podiums in this Olympic cycle, will miss the rest of the season, including next month’s world Alpine skiing championships, due to injuries from a race crash on Jan. 9.
Ford, a giant slalom specialist, was airlifted to a hospital after crashing in Adelboden, Switzerland, in the last World Cup GS before the world championships.
He tore some knee ligaments in his knee and hand, plus suffered a concussion in being knocked unconscious temporarily.
“There is some more work that needs to be done to fix my knee but needs to wait until my body is ready,” was posted on his social media on Tuesday. “My head and neck have no significant structural damage even though I am still dealing with some neck pain and a concussion.”
Ford, 31 and a two-time Olympian, is the top U.S. male GS skier. He won a World Cup GS at Beaver Creek, Colo., in December 2019 and made two more podiums in 2020.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle, the only other U.S. man with a World Cup podium in this Olympic cycle, may also miss worlds after breaking his neck in a race crash on Friday.
The top GS skiers this season are Frenchman Alexis Pinturault and Swiss Marco Odermatt.
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Men are eligible for Olympic artistic swimming for the first time at the 2024 Paris Games, the IOC confirmed Thursday.
Up to two men per country will be allowed in the eight-person team event, though nations may still elect to send all-woman teams.
Artistic swimming, formerly known as synchronized swimming, has been on the Olympic program since 1984.
“The inclusion of men in Olympic artistic swimming was once considered the impossible dream,” 43-year-old American Bill May, considered a pioneer in men’s artistic swimming, said in a press release. “This proves that we should all dream big. The male athletes have endured. Now, through their perseverance and the help and support of so many, all athletes may stand alongside each other equally, reaching for Olympic glory.”
In October, World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming events, amended its rules to allow up to two men per country in the artistic team event at competitions including the Olympics.
But it still needed IOC approval to change the previously published rules for the 2024 Paris Games.
The IOC said in November that it was working with World Aquatics “to understand their long term development plans for the integration of men into artistic swimming, and the opportunities that may exist for men to compete in artistic swimming at the Olympic Games.”
On Thursday, the IOC said in a statement, “The Olympic Programme Commission has reviewed the World Aquatics (formerly FINA) rule change for Artistic Swimming and confirmed that the event would be listed as Open for Paris 2024.”
Rhythmic gymnastics is now the lone discipline that is not open to men at the Olympics. Nordic combined, a Winter Games event, is the lone sport that is not open to women at the Olympics.
Since 2015, the world championships in artistic swimming have included a mixed duet with one male swimmer and female swimmer, an event that is not on the Olympic program.
U.S. artistic swimming head coach Andrea Fuentes said this fall that she was looking forward to having men in her athlete pool for the team event.
“We have males ready to swim, but there are other countries who have not,” Fuentes said, adding that she will decide whether to enter men in upcoming team competitions to test them out. “I want inclusion. … If I have the opportunity to do it, I will for sure use it.”
The current U.S. national team includes 25 athletes: 24 women and one man: Kenny Gaudet, an 18-year-old from Lakeland, Florida, recently highlighted by the Los Angeles Times. Gaudet has competed in solo and duet events, plus is part of the U.S. team in the acrobatic routine that World Aquatics announced last month will be added to the Olympic event for Paris.
May, who last competed in 2021 and now coaches the Santa Clara Aquamaids program in California, said he learned of male Olympic inclusion via text message from a World Aquatics artistic swimming official on Oct. 20. May described his reaction as “an explosion. Not just for me. For the sport.”
The U.S. still must qualify for the 10-nation 2024 Olympic team event. It failed to reach the last three Olympics. It missed the Tokyo Games by one spot and .2108 of a point in a last-chance qualifier.
At this past summer’s world championships, the U.S. placed sixth in the technical routine, ninth in the free routine and fifth in the highlight (acrobatic) routine, the three events that will make up future Olympic competition. That was its best combined result at a worlds since 2007, the last year it qualified for the Olympic team event.
For 2024, the winner of the 2023 Pan American Games qualifies for the Olympics. The U.S. is expected to contend with Canada and Mexico for that spot.
If the U.S. does not win Pan Ams, its last shot to qualify will be the February 2024 World Championships. The top five nations among those not already qualified via continental championships will round out the 10-nation Olympic field.
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This month’s “Chasing Gold” episode includes the story of an Olympic champion swimmer reaching out to the family of another Olympic champion swimmer in a time of need.
“Chasing Gold,” a monthly look at Olympic and Paralympic sports, airs Saturday at 3 p.m. ET and will be available on Peacock the following week.
Last winter, 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medalist swimmer Missy Franklin Johnson spread the word that her father, Dick, and aunt and godmother, Deb, were in end-stage kidney failure. That side of the family has genetic polycystic kidney disease. They were both on transplant waiting lists for a cadaver kidney.
“Our family is looking for a Hail Mary and need your help as we are in a race for time,” Missy’s mom and Dick’s husband of 51 years, D.A., wrote on Facebook on Jan. 23.
That post made it to the screen of retired swimmer Crissy Perham (formerly Crissy Ahmann-Leighton), who at the 1992 Barcelona Games earned two relay gold medals and silver in the 100m butterfly. Perham had no prior relationship with the Franklin family, but she was moved by what she read.
“You could feel her desperation in that letter, and how important this was,” Perham said. “I did not put any sort of thought into it other than, I wonder if I can help? And if I can help, I should help.”
Perham emailed D.A. The process led to her donating a kidney to Dick in August. The donor and recipient met for the first time on gurneys moments before the surgeries. Deb also recently received a transplant.
“Two Olympic gold medalists, coming together, one my daughter, one my donor. I mean, come on. How surreal can we get on this? What are the mathematical odds?” Dick said. “To actually go into an operating room and have one of your organs removed for somebody who’s a complete stranger is pretty remarkable. Pretty darn remarkable in my mind. In the world we live in today, that’s in the top 1% of human behavior from where I sit.”
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