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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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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American Lashinda Demus has been upgraded from 2012 Olympic 400m hurdles runner-up to champion by World Athletics after original winner Natalya Antyukh of Russia did not appeal her recent retroactive disqualification for doping.
Demus, who originally finished seven hundredths of a second behind Antyukh, is now listed as gold medalist on her World Athletics page. Antyukh was moved from first place to the bottom of the race results, listed as DQ.
Zuzana Hejnová of the Czech Republic was moved from third to second and Jamaican Kaliese Spencer from fourth to third.
The International Olympic Committee has not changed its results to reallocate medals but can still do so. The Athletics Integrity Unit, which handles doping cases in track and field, said it notified the IOC last Friday of World Athletics’ results change.
“The reallocation of medals is not automatic,” the IOC press office said Wednesday when asked about the 2012 Olympic women’s 400m hurdles results change. “As a general rule, each reallocation is submitted to the IOC [Executive Board] for approval once the athletes/teams sanctioned have exhausted all their remedies of appeal and when all procedures are closed.”
On Oct. 24, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency announced that Antyukh’s results from July 2012 through June 2013, a stretch that includes the London Games, were stripped due to evidence of doping from historical data. Antyukh, a 41-year-old who last competed in 2016, was already serving a four-year doping ban.
“Hearing the news didn’t impact my mood or feelings being that it has been 10 years since it has happened,” Demus, who last competed in 2016, wrote in an email after the October announcement. “I have mixed emotions about it all. I do believe that if, in fact, there was doping involved with anyone in the Olympics that they should be stripped of their medal. With everything being said it looks like this is the case for my race. I’m not afraid to say that I then deserve the official title, medal, recognition, and missed compensation that goes along with it all. I wouldn’t want any athlete to go through this same situation and I hope that keeping athletes honest in our sport stays at the forefront for those who sacrifice a good part of their life to be great at it.”
In the 2012 Olympic 400m hurdles final, Antyukh, then 31, lowered her personal best by 22 hundredths of a second to hold off Demus by seven hundredths for the gold medal.
“Of course, I wanted the gold medal; I will not stop until I get the gold medal,” Demus told Lewis Johnson on NBC after the race, voicing a desire to return for the 2016 Olympics (which she did not do after a series of injuries).
At the time, Demus was the third-fastest woman in history in the event and the American record holder with a personal best of 52.47.
Demus, a 2004 Olympian, missed the 2008 Beijing Games by one spot at Olympic Trials after giving birth to twins in June 2007. She also won world championships medals in 2005 (silver), 2009 (silver), 2011 (gold) and 2013 (bronze).
Demus becomes, retroactively, the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic 400m hurdles title. Dalilah Muhammad won the event in 2016 and Sydney McLaughlin last year in Tokyo.
Russia originally won eight track and field gold medals at the 2012 Olympics. Due to doping, that number is now down to one pending the IOC medal reallocations — high jumper Anna Chicherova, who was stripped of her 2008 Olympic bronze medal for doping.
The span between Antyukh winning an Olympic medal and it being stripped for doping may be the longest for the Summer Games since Lance Armstrong was stripped of his 2000 Olympic cycling time trial bronze medal more than 12 years after the race. That medal was not reallocated. Spain’s Abraham Olano, the fourth-place finisher, was not upgraded and later had his name come up in a French senate report of cyclists who doped in the 1998 Tour de France.
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