For Olympian Jason Brown, the ice is nice but family comes first
By EmmaKate Austin At the 2014 USA Figure Skating national championships, Jason Brown joyfully Irish-danced his way to a silver medal and a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. He did it his way: He had ignored advice to train away from home. Even after representing the U.S. in Sochi later that year and winning […]
Olympic golf may need mulligan with local audiences
By Peter Dawson The city of Chicago was well-represented the last time golf was a featured sport in the Summer Olympics. Just four years before the Cubs won their last World Series, H. Chandler Egan won a silver medal in the individual competition and led the Western Golf Association to a Gold Medal in the […]
Women’s wrestling takes a strong stance
By Jasmine Cannon Until two decades ago, a fan could go to a wrestling match and all of the athletes shared a common trait: they were male. Now the ladies have leagues of their own. Twelve years ago, women’s wrestling became an Olympic sport. Today 28 colleges sponsor a varsity program and more than 11,000 […]
Icy debate over alternative therapies for athletes
By Erin Barney Justina Di Stasio put on a surgical mask, cotton gloves, thick socks and rubber shoes. A tank top and shorts left her arms and legs exposed to -120 degree temperatures, and after only 30 seconds, she lost feeling in her muscles. She went completely numb in the remaining two minutes of her […]
She stings like a bee: why a former national champion is turning pro
Q&A with boxer Raquel Miller By Grant Miller Raquel Miller was the greatest-or at least she was in 2012, when she was the welterweight U.S. national boxing champion. Miller hoped to qualify for the Olympics then and again last November, when she finished third at the Olympic team trials. The silver lining: middleweight boxing champion […]
Touche: Chicago club aims to be elite training hub for youth fencing
By Peter Dawson On a recent Saturday morning, two dozen 10-year-olds were brandishing invisible swords, imagining they were dueling in a galaxy far, far away. The sport of fencing is able to turn that fantasy into a reality. “It could even be as simple as asking a kid: do you like Star Wars and Pirates […]
Gladiators go glam
By Caley Chelios Olympic skeleton racer Katie Uhlaendar, 31, flies 80 mph head first on a 37-inch sled down frozen tracks. She is a glamorous girl on fire, with an aerodynamic speed suit on her body and lash extensions, red hair extensions and Mac lip liner under her helmet. For World Cup competitions in Austria […]
International wrestlers pin Rio dreams on U.S. training visit
By Tolly Taylor and Aishwarya Kumar Lakshminarayanapuram Imagine inviting someone to your house for the first time, and she beats you up. That’s what happened in January when Estonian wrestler Mae Epp bludgeoned her U.S. opponents with two technical falls and a pin at the Dave Schultz Memorial International tournament in Colorado Springs. The world […]
Women wrestlers defy stereotypes on and off the mat
By Grant Miller Katherine Fulp-Allen has a hard time convincing people that she’s an Olympic wrestler. At 5 feet 6 inches and 117 pounds, she blended into a group of people in front of the wrestling mat until the announcer called her name as the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler. She then stepped out in her […]
Paralympic swimmer stared down death, now hopes to compete in Rio
By Michelle R. Martinelli COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — U.S. Army Sgt. Elizabeth Marks, 25, suffered bilateral hip injuries during a tour in Iraq, endured four surgeries in 18 months and almost died from respiratory distress in a British hospital. She said swimming saved what she cherishes most — her military career. It also saved her […]
