The final day of the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, brought plenty of thrilling finishes as the United States continued to add to its medal haul on home soil.

Olympic champion Athing Mu headlined the United States’ productive Sunday, capturing the 800-meter title by eight-hundredths of a second. Holding off a challenge from Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson down the stretch, Mu finished with a time of 1 minute, 56.30 seconds, the fastest so far this year.

At 20 years old, Mu is now the youngest woman in history to hold Olympic and world titles in an individual track and field event. She also is the first American woman to win the 800 at worlds.

“At the end of the race, golly, I was just happy it was over,” Mu said after the race. “Today was kind of a rough day for me. I was just happy I could make it to the line and finish the race. Thank God I won gold.”

GOLD FOR @TeamUSA!

Olympic champion Athing Mu is the new WORLD CHAMPION in the women’s 800m. pic.twitter.com/mIoazafU0m

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) July 25, 2022

The United States also topped the podium in the 4×400-meter relay, delivering America its record 33rd medal of the competition.

Sydney McLaughlin, the 400-meter hurdles world champion, anchored the relay team, which also included Talitha Diggs, Abby Steiner and Britton Wilson, securing the United States a comfortable 2.93-second win over Jamaica. The 22-year-old’s staggering 47.91 split delivered the 4×400 relay team a dominant three-minute, 17.79-second finish.

Sunday’s win marks the United States’ fifth straight Olympic or Worlds gold medal in the 4×400 relay event. The first-place finish also secured Allyson Felix, who briefly returned from her recent retirement to run in the event’s preliminary race, a record-extending 20th career world championships medal.

“We’re a family, we stick together,” McLaughlin said after the 4×400 relay final. “Allyson came out of retirement to get us here, so we wanted to do this.”

Sydney McLaughlin leads Team USA to win gold in the 4x400m 🙌

(via @NBCOlympics)pic.twitter.com/KhzzShINJf

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 25, 2022

Former Spanish soccer federation chief Rubiales will stand trial on charges of sexual assault and coercion for his unsolicited kiss of Jenni Hermoso after last year's Women’s World Cup final, a judge confirmed this week.

Back in January, Judge Francisco de Jorge recommended that Rubiales be held accountable for his 2023 actions, calling the kiss "unconsented and carried out unilaterally and in a surprising fashion" and within the bounds of "intimacy of sexual relations." On Wednesday, Spain’s National Court ruled that Rubiales should indeed stand trial.

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Rubiales has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying the kiss was consensual. Hermoso, meanwhile, defined the incident, which occurred during the WWC medal ceremony, as "unexpected and at no time consensual."

Public prosecutors and lawyers for the Spanish Women's National Football Team star and Women's World Cup champion are seeking two and a half years of prison time for Rubiales: one year for sexual assault, and an additional 18 months for participating in coercion.

Rubiales is alleged to have pressured Hermoso into showing support for him following the kiss. Three other officials — including former women's national team head coach Jorge Vilda — are also facing coercion charges that could result in 18 months in prison. 

A trial date has yet to be set. Last October, FIFA banned Rubiales from all football activity for three years. The sentence will be in place through the 2026 Men’s World Cup, but will have expired by the time the 2027 Women's World Cup begins.

Brazil has officially become the favorite to host the 2027 Women's World Cup after FIFA’s technical inspection team awarded them a higher rating than the joint European bid. 

After the US and Mexico dropped out of the running last month, the bid from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands had previously been pegged to win hosting rights for the next Women's World Cup. But FIFA's latest report shows that Brazil was given a score of 4.0 out of 5 in its technical evaluation, besting the European contender's score of 3.7.

Brazil ranked higher in a number of key areas, including stadiums, accommodations, fan zones, and transport infrastructure. The country is aiming to reuse 10 of the venues used for the 2014 Men's World Cup in 2027, with the final set to take place in Rio de Janeiro. 

"The Bid Evaluation Report reflects the comprehensive evaluation model that has become a hallmark of FIFA’s enhanced bidding processes for men’s and women’s flagship events, which incorporates a variety of criteria, ranging from event vision and key metrics, infrastructure, services, commercial aspects, and sustainability and human rights," FIFA wrote in a press release.

The report also highlighted the fact that this would be the first Women's World Cup in South America, noting that the decision could "have a tremendous impact on women's football in the region."

Should the EU bid win, it wouldn't be the first WWC in Europe, as Germany played host to the event in 2011 before France in 2019. There could also be further complications for the Germany-Belgium-Netherlands bid: In its report, the evaluation team regarded the bid's legal and contractual framework as "high-risk."

FIFA has promised more planning time for the 2031 Women's World Cup. While the Men's World Cup hosts have already been secured through 2034, the WWC is only three years away with a host yet to be named.

The final vote is set to take place at the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok on May 17th. It will be the first time FIFA determines a World Cup host via an open vote.

Lynn Williams played hero on Wednesday night, helping Gotham to its first win over the Houston Dash since May 15th, 2021.

Coming in the eighth minute, the forward's goal was all it took for the Bats to ink the 1-0 victory. It was also her 78th across all NWSL competitions, landing her neck-and-neck with former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr for the most career goals in league history.

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"Wow, that’s really cool. To have my name there with Sam Kerr is amazing. But I don’t get that goal, I don’t get those things, without my teammates," Williams said of her accomplishment.

Williams' effort also marked the team’s 300th club goal across all competitions. 

"I think the players executed the game plan almost to perfection," echoed Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amorós after the match. "I am very, very proud of how they’ve been able to perform like that in such a shorter space of time."

The goal was Williams’ second in as many games, giving her two goals through five matches played this season. Gotham will next travel to San Diego to face the Wave at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday.

The Chicago Sky showed up in a big way on Tuesday night, taking down 2023 WNBA Finals runners-up New York Liberty by an impressively wide margin. 

The Sky walked away with a 101-53 win, boasting a 48 point swing that still looms large despite the fact that it's only preseason. Perhaps the team felt extra pressure to perform — not only did WNBA League Pass follow through on their promise to stream the game for free, but Chicago Bears rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze also happened to be watching on from the stands.

“I’m gonna just say — it’s about time," said Sky guard Dana Evans in response to the star-studded turnout at Wintrust Arena. "Everybody wants to watch women’s basketball. I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job of doing stuff on the court and off the court. So just having them support us is great — but keep bringing them out."

Chicago's Marina Mabrey was lights out with four threes and 20 points on the night, while training camp addition Chennedy Carter racked up 11 points and two steals. 

Sky rookie Angel Reese proved that she can do it all, putting up 13 points, five rebounds, and two steals in 19 minutes — all less than 24 hours after she walked the Met Gala red carpet in New York. The 6-foot-3 top draft pick out of LSU even knocked down a layup over 2023 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart in one of the night's many highlights.

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"So now yall can delete them drafts & tweets saying i shouldn’t have gone to the met gala & i can’t do both," she later wrote on social media. 

While some may chalk it up to preseason coaching choices and the fact that it was the Liberty’s first real game outside of training camp scrimmages, New York head coach Sandy Brondello still voiced disappointed in her team’s result.

"We just got our butts kicked, everywhere. I mean everything. It’s an embarrassing effort, I don’t care that it’s preseason," she said in a postgame press conference. "Our starters didn't get us off to a good start. We missed a lot of layups early, but they just took us out of everything."

On a lighter note, the third-year Liberty coach had some kind words for undrafted rookie Jaylyn Sherrod, who showed real effort on defense.

"She has speed," remarked Brondello. "She could guard Dana Evans. No one else could."