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Love for running sends Elise Cranny on journey to national stardom

Elise Cranny of Team United States looks on after competing in the Women’s 5,000-meter race in Round 1 on day seven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on July 30, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Elise Cranny loved that cross country practice involved running to Dairy Queen. As a middle schooler, she’d grab an ice cream cone with her teammates and jog back to practice.

There was no pressure or high stakes. No worries about hitting times to impress university coaches.

“Running is pretty cool!” she thought to herself at the time.

One year later, Cranny entered her freshman year at Niwot High School, just outside of Boulder, Colo., having never experienced a state championship meet nor won a cross country or track race.

She was just passionate about being on a team.

Even though running looks like an individual sport, cross country uses the placing of a school’s top-five runners to create an overall team score. First place scores one point, second place two, and so on. The team’s combined scores are then added together, and the one with the lowest tally wins.

In the fall of 2010, Cranny had no individual expectations for her first major meet, the 4A Region 2 Cross Country Championships. She just wanted to be a part of a team — all dressed in their emerald green singlets with the letter “N” on the front — that qualified for state.

When the starting gun went off, the sound of nearly 100 runners thundering down a field echoed throughout the small town of Lyons, Colo.

Cranny settled into a comfortable rhythm. She clicked off the kilometers and moved further and further up the pack.

Until, suddenly, with the five-kilometer race coming to a close, she found herself in the lead. Sprinting down the grass field, nine seconds ahead of her next closest competitor, she crossed the line with a mixture of shock and awe.

Combined with her victory, her teammates finished seventh, ninth, 10th and 16th, giving Niwot the regional title and a spot at state.

The race was a whirlwind of emotions. It all came so fast. Success came so fast.

One year earlier, Cranny was spending cross country practice running to Dairy Queen. After the meet, she was a regional champion.

It was the first time Cranny experienced that intoxicating feeling of success.

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Elise Cranny, pictured here in 2014, won two cross country state championships at Niwot High School. (Matt Jonas/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)

Cranny loves to spend time with people.

It’s obvious early in our Zoom call, on a late May afternoon, that Cranny is a people person. Two months before the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore., the Nike athlete is in Park City for a training camp with her Bowerman Track Club teammates.

“We live together in groups up here, so it’s fun to live with your teammates,” Cranny says

The team runs together, works out together and socializes together. Aside from getting fit for the upcoming outdoor season, the camp is a bonding experience for a team filled with professional runners from across the world.

“We do team meals, and then maybe we’ll watch a show, play a game — that’s a pretty standard altitude camp,” she says.

Since she graduated from Niwot in 2014, Cranny has developed into one of the most promising American middle distance runners in the country.

She won two cross country state individual titles, and gold in the 800m, 1,600m, and 3,200m track events as a junior and senior in high school. At Stanford University from 2014-18, she was a 12-time All-American, two-time academic All-American and two-time Pac-12 champion.

Last summer, Cranny won the U.S. Olympic trials in the 5,000m and finished 13th in that event at the Olympics in Tokyo.

With half a lap to go in the trials, under record-breaking heat in Oregon, Cranny trailed her Bowerman teammate, Karissa Schweizer, by just a few steps for the lead. Rounding the final corner, Cranny moved up so she was in lockstep with her teammate.

Her arms pumped back and forth like pistons. Her face twisted in pain.

After crossing the line first, Cranny immediately turned back for Schweizer and grabbed her in a hug — realizing that they would both be going to the Olympics. The feeling wasn’t too different from when she won her first regional meet in Colorado all those years ago, and the team was moving on to state.

“After the trials, again, I don’t know, it was kind of just like I was awed and very excited about a dream from a very young age coming true. It was very surreal,” she says.

Her momentum didn’t slow down after the Olympics.

Cranny started the 2022 track season at a blistering pace. She set an American record by running 14:33 in an indoor 5k in February, and one month later, she ran the second-fastest American 10k of all time. This past weekend at the USA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., where Cranny opted out of the 10,000m trials, she ran a 4:25 final mile to hold off teammate Karissa Schweizer and win her second straight U.S. title in the 5,000m with a time of 15:49.15. She’ll try to back that up with another first-place finish at the World Championships beginning July 15, also in Eugene.

Cranny, 26, credits the breakthroughs to getting a taste of being on the sport’s biggest stage, and the solidification of becoming one of the best runners in the world.

“Tokyo was a very eye-opening experience,” Cranny says. “After racing in the final and seeing what it was taking to medal and be top 10, it reignited a whole new passion for me in the sport of like, ‘OK, this is what it takes to be at this level.’”

Early in Cranny’s life, she overlooked the process that gave her so much success.

When success came, she took herself too seriously. She failed to treasure the small moments — such as collecting Silly Bandz with teammates on the bus to meets — in her young track and field career that she now looks back on fondly.

“In high school, I was just super rigid, and I thought you had to do everything super seriously,” she says. “It’s very type A, and I think there’s this balance between being serious, working really hard and having fun with it.”

At the beginning of her freshman year at Stanford, Cranny got stuck in an injury cycle for about two and a half years. She suffered four different bone injuries, and amid that cycle, wondered whether she would be able to continue running.

“Every time you feel like you’re getting back to where you were, that’s when the next [injury] would come,” Cranny says.

“I still wanted to run professionally, but some of that time in the middle was testing, like, ‘OK, can my body handle this?’”

Focusing on the love of the sport, specifically stringing together workouts and socializing with teammates outside of practice, helped Cranny get into a healthy mental state.

“When I had some upperclassmen that were helping me, it’s like, wow. It makes you feel so connected to them,” Cranny says.

In the past couple of years, Cranny has been open about her own struggle with mental health and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), a condition where athletes don’t get enough calories to support the demand of their sport. RED-S can lead to bone injuries, low energy availability and amenorrhea.

She has also partnered with Voice in Sport, an online platform that connects girls and women in sport, to become a mentor for the next generation of athletes.

“I want to be able to hopefully help the people that are coming in learn lessons quicker,” she says.

As she’s gotten older, Cranny has become more observant. She’s gone through a lot for a 26-year-old: a cycle of expectations, success and injuries. It’s hard as a pro athlete, when your life is on display and your job is to run world-class times, to find consistency.

But now, more than ever, Cranny has achieved balance. Rather than putting too much pressure on herself ahead of a race, she’s patient and introspective — eager to learn about other people and lend a helping hand.

It may seem counterintuitive to tell someone — whose job is to run fast — to slow down. But since the Olympics, Cranny has strengthened that aspect of her life with the help of a sports psychologist.

“Something that he says is, ‘Take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously,’” she explains.

She got a taste of being on the international stage last summer at Tokyo and is hungry to improve on her world ranking. Her long-term goals include winning a World Championship or an Olympic medal.

“That’s where I want to be, competing for those podium spots at global championships,” she says.

Right before we log off of our Zoom call, we exchange pleasantries, and she remembers that I mentioned that I’m in Alabama for a national track and field meet.

“Good luck this … er, not this weekend…Wednesday, you said?,” she says, catching herself and thinking back to the beginning of our conversation.

The specificity epitomizes who Cranny is.

She’s a regular person, who happens to be faster than most people in the world, and she wants to get it right. She listens and remembers the smallest details — like a date — that others may easily forget. Yes, she has her own practices and races to think about, but Cranny is genuinely interested in the lives of other people.

Josh Kozelj is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports based in Vancouver, B.C. He has written for The New York Times, Globe, Mail, CBC and various other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @joshkozelj27.

Boxing Champion Katie Taylor Takes Third Straight Win Over Amanda Serrano

Katie Taylor fights against Amanda Serrano during their 2025 bout at Madison Square Garden.
With Friday's win, Taylor retains her IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO, and Ring super lightweight titles. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images for Netflix)

Undisputed super lightweight champion Katie Taylor defeated Amanda Serrano in the boxing legends' third-straight fight on Friday, winning the highly-anticipated rematch by majority decision.

In front of 19,721 fans in Madison Square Garden, Taylor capped the pair's rivalry just over three years after meeting in the first-ever women's headliner fight at the iconic New York venue.

"I can't believe that this is my life," said Taylor after the clash. "I'm headlining the show at Madison Square Garden. I'm looking back on the whole journey. What an absolute, what an amazing life. These are nights that I dreamed of as a kid and sitting here again as a winner. I'm so happy, so grateful."

While the 39-year-old Irishwoman retained her world championship titles in the bout, Taylor had to battle as the 36-year-old Puerto Rican, who holds world titles in over four weight classes, kept the 30 rounds tight.

While Taylor ultimately took home top honors, Most Valuable Promotions co-founder and CEO Nakisa Bidarian, whose company presented the Friday event, made it clear that "Nobody lost tonight."

The night's biggest winner was the sport itself, as Taylor and Serrano's third and final contest led an all-women's card with 17 world titles on the table — a historic moment that Taylor does not take for granted.

"We created history together three times," Taylor said about Serrano. "My name will always be embedded with hers forever. I'm very, very happy about that."

"What we've been able to create over these last few years has been unbelievable," she continued. "It's amazing to have a rival like that in the sport. And this has brought [the world to] an event like this tonight, an all-female card, because of what myself and Amanda have been able to do to produce over the last few years."

Iga Świątek Makes History With 2025 Wimbledon Championship Win

Iga Świątek poses holding her 2025 Wimbledon trophy.
Świątek earned her sixth Grand Slam title by dominating Saturday's 2025 Wimbledon final. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

New world No. 3 tennis star Iga Świątek won her first Wimbledon Championship on Saturday, needing only 57 minutes to dominate US finalist No. 7 Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 to top the 2025 London Slam.

To date, Świątek has never lost a Grand Slam final.

Saturday's title is the 24-year-old's first tournament win this season and the sixth Grand Slam trophy of her career alongside her four French Open wins and her 2022 US Open victory.

Świątek is now the first woman to win Wimbledon without dropping a single game in the final in over 100 years, with Saturday's performance joining only Dorothea Lambert Chambers's 1911 London title win over Dora Boothby in that elite club.

Even more, Świątek and legendary German star Steffi Graf are now the only women's players to win a Slam by a perfect 6-0, 6-0 scoreline in the Open Era, with Graf doing so at the 1988 French Open.

"[It's] pretty surreal," said Świątek afterwards. "I'm just proud of myself because... who would have expected that?!"

With grass proving to be one of the trickiest surfaces in the modern calendar, Świątek is now the eighth straight first-time Wimbledon women's champion, and the first to hail from Poland.

"Today I just wanted to enjoy the time that I had on the Centre Court and enjoy the last hours of me playing well on grass, because who knows if it's going to happen again," she said. "I just focused on that, and I really had fun."

While Świątek celebrates, the tennis world will now switch back to the hardcourt — many players' preferred surface — as the 2025 US Open kicks off next month to wrap up the Grand Slam calendar.

Chicago Sky Look to Upset WNBA-Leading Minnesota Lynx in Second Straight Game

Chicago Sky star Angel Reese and Minnesota Lynx leader Napheesa Collier look on during a 2025 WNBA game.
The Chicago Sky will play the Minnesota Lynx in the pair's second straight game on Monday. (Daniel Bartel/Getty Images)

Fresh off a banner win against the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx on Saturday, the No. 10 Chicago Sky have a shot at a second straight victory over the league leaders as this week's WNBA action tips off.

The upstart Sky handed the Lynx just their fourth loss of the 2025 season on Saturday, snagging the 87-81 victory behind guard Ariel Atkins's game-leading 27 points.

"Somebody said we aren't the best young core in the league — I think we're the best, for sure," Chicago forward Angel Reese said after notching her eighth-straight double-double in Saturday's win. "We do it every single night."

After suffer two of their four losses within the last week, Minnesota will be hunting redemption, as the Lynx faces both teams who bested them before the league breaks for the 2025 WNBA All-Star weekend — starting with the Sky:

  • No. 1 Minnesota Lynx vs. No. 10 Chicago Sky, 8 PM ET on Monday (WNBA League Pass): In front of another Chicago crowd, Minnesota will look to avenge their weekend loss and maintain their multi-game lead in the WNBA standings as the league races toward its midway point.
  • No. 2 Phoenix Mercury vs. No. 8 Golden State Valkyries, 10 PM ET on Monday (WNBA League Pass): Following an extended road trip, the Valkyries will tip off their first July home game on Monday, as the always-impressive Golden State crowd will try to boost them above the WNBA's No. 2 team.

Top Teams Advance as 2025 Euro Locks In Field for Quarterfinals

France attacker Delphine Cascarino celebrates a goal in the final 2025 Euro group stage match.
France led the "Group of Death" with nine points in three games. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Image)

Last weekend solidified the 2025 Euro quarterfinals, as eight of the region's top teams escaped a competitive group stage to sit just three wins away from becoming European Champions.

World No. 16 Norway emerged as the Group A winner with three straight wins, with host No. 23 Switzerland joining them by advancing from the Euro group stage for the first time in history.

The Swiss booked their quarterfinal spot thanks to a last-gasp goal by midfielder Riola Xhemaili in Thursday's 1-1 draw with No. 26 Finland, giving them a narrow goal differential to advance in Group A's second place.

Speaking of goal differential, No. 2 Spain cruised through by outscoring their opponents 14 to three in their trio of Group B wins.

Despite falling 3-1 to La Roja on Friday, No. 13 Italy secured their position in the 2025 Euro quarterfinals with four groups points — just ahead of No. 20 Belgium's three points.

Though Group C's frontrunners advanced before taking the pitch for their final first-round match, No. 6 Sweden handed second-place No. 3 Germany their largest defeat in tournament history on Saturday, dominating the Germans 4-1 and raising the stakes entering this week's knockouts.

Elsewhere, a dramatic opening round saw the Group D leaders more than survive the "Group of Death," as both stage-winners No. 10 France and No. 5 England emphatically booked their quarterfinal spots with massive victories on Sunday.

While the defending Euro champs staged a 6-1 goal-fest against UK rivals No. 30 Wales to advance, Les Bleues overcame a 2-1 halftime deficit to sink the No. 11 Netherlands 5-2 on Sunday, taking the lead with an astounding three goals in six minutes — including a brace from San Diego Wave attacker Delphine Cascarino.

How to watch the 2025 Euro quarterfinals

The eight quarterfinalists have a short break to celebrate and prepare, as their 2025 Euro slate is wiped clean before the knockouts begin on Wednesday.

Each 2025 Euro quarterfinal will take the pitch on consecutive days, with all matches kicking off at 3 PM ET:

  • Wednesday: No. 16 Norway vs. No. 13 Italy
  • Thursday: No. 6 Sweden vs. No. 5 England
  • Friday: No. 2 Spain vs. No. 23 Switzerland
  • Saturday: No. 10 France vs. No. 3 Germany

Live coverage will air across Fox Sports platforms.

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