Welcome to The Gold Standard, hosted by WNBA and Team USA basketball legend Lisa Leslie and NWSL and USWNT great Kelley O'Hara.
In today's episode, our hosts preview both the USWNT's gold medal match against Brazil and Team USA's Olympic final against France. Later, Kelley and Lisa talk all things track and field with four-time gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross.
Watch along for expert insight from gold medalists, exclusive behind-the-scenes stories, and pure enjoyment of the Summer Games.
Subscribe to Just Women's Sports on YouTube to never miss an episode.
Welcome to The Gold Standard, hosted by WNBA and Team USA basketball legend Lisa Leslie and NWSL and USWNT great Kelley O'Hara.
In today's episode, our hosts recap the USWNT semifinal win over Germany, Team USA's 3×3 basketball bronze, Kevin Durant breaking Lisa's Olympic record, Sha'Carri Richardson's silver medal, and so much more.
Watch along for expert insight from gold medalists, exclusive behind-the-scenes stories, and pure enjoyment of the Summer Games.
Subscribe to Just Women's Sports on YouTube to never miss an episode.
Five days into the Olympic track and field competition, Team USA is well on their way to matching their Tokyo medal count of 26. With 11 medals — three of them gold — the US leads all nations in the sport, with Kenya siting in second place with three medals.
US women make Olympic history
Triple jumper Jasmine Moore kicked things off on Saturday, becoming the first US woman in history to win bronze in her event.
Then yesterday, Tokyo discus gold medalist Valarie Allman notched a 69.50-meter toss, becoming just the third woman to secure back-to-back golds in the event.
St. Lucia's Alfred takes fastest woman title
Though two US women made Saturday’s 100-meter podium — Sha’Carri Richardson won silver while Melissa Jefferson won bronze — it was Julien Alfred who raced into the history books.
The 23-year-old secured Saint Lucia’s first-ever Olympic medal with her gold medal win, finishing 0.15 seconds ahead of Richardson — the event's largest margin of victory since 2008.
Missing from this year’s 100-meter race was 2008 gold medalist and Jamaican legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who failed to run in her qualifying semifinal days after fellow Jamaican and 100-meter favorite Shericka Jackson bowed out of the event.
And with three of the eight-runner lineup repping Team USA, including gold medal–favorite and world No. 2 Gabby Thomas, Tuesday's race to watch is the 200-meter final, which takes off at 3:40 PM ET.
Where to watch Team USA compete in Olympic track and field events
Track and field events will continue through August 11th, with live coverage across NBC networks.
Olympic track and field takes flight today, with a talented Team USA looking to ascend the podium once again.
From early this morning until a few hours before the Closing Ceremony, track and field stars will compete across 48 events in a quest for Olympic glory.
USA track and field shoots for Olympic podium return
In 2021, Team USA led all nations with a collective 26 medals, with athletes competing in women’s events — including Katie Moon (pole vault), Valarie Allman (discus), and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (400-meter hurdles) — responsible for five of the team’s seven golds.
Since then, the squad has only improved, earning 33 and 29 medals at the last two World Athletics Championships respectively, including 12 golds in Budapest last summer.
New rule offers track and field athletes an Olympic redo
For the first time in Olympic history, the 2024 Games will feature a repechage round in the 200-meter through 1,500-meter races, offering athletes who underperformed in heats a second shot at advancing.
In previous Olympics, those spots went to athletes who failed to qualify in their heats but had the fastest overall non-advancing times.
"It’s kind of like a make-up quiz," said US Trials 100-meter hurdles champ Masai Russell. "If it didn’t go right the first time, you could get it right the second time. That’s really good because I feel like with the hurdles especially, anything can happen."
Team USA women's track and field athletes to watch
To call Team USA stacked would be an understatement. These are just a handful of the 61 US women’s sports superstars expected to set the standard in Paris.
Sha’Carri Richardson: Making her highly anticipated Olympic debut after a 2021 suspension, 2024’s fastest woman is favored to become Team USA’s first women’s 100-meter gold medalist since 1996 — and with Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson dropping that race, it’s Richardson’s to lose.
Gabby Thomas: Tokyo bronze medalist Thomas will face back-to-back world champion Jackson in the 200-meter, with both runners chasing legend Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 1988 world record.
Katie Moon: Tokyo gold medalist Moon will defend her pole vaulting title at her second Olympics in Paris, going up against stiff competition in the form of fellow Olympic gold medalist, Greece’s Aikaterini Stefanidi.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone: The 400-meter hurdles star's biggest competition is herself: McLaughlin-Levrone has lowered her own world record five times and is poised to become the event’s first-ever two-time Olympic champ.
Chase Jackson: The world’s top-ranked women's shot putter, Jackson will make her Olympic debut in Paris after winning gold at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships.
The 2024 US Olympic Track & Field Trials returned to action on Thursday, with track stars Sha’Carri Richardson and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone both in the mix.
Richardson is competing in the 200-meter after winning the 100-meter and securing her spot on the Olympic team. McLaughlin-Levron, meanwhile, is competing in the 400-meter hurdles — an event in which she currently holds the world record.
McLaughlin-Levron won Thursday's heat handily, and will now advance to Saturday's semifinal. Her time of 53.07 bested Anna Cockrell's second-fastest time by 1.64 seconds.
"[That] felt good," she told NBC after the win. "I'm honestly excited to be out here and shake off the nerves. My stride pattern felt good. Just getting the feel of the rounds again; I really feel good."
Richardson also made light work of Thursday's heats, winning the 200-meter hurdles with a time of 21.99 — the second-fastest recorded this year — and advancing with ease to the semifinals.
"I’m really just focusing in on executing the curve to make the straightaway much, much easier," she told reporters. "Any time I touch the track it's an opportunity for me to work on my best self."
Elsewhere, discus thrower Valarie Allman confirmed that she too would defend her Tokyo medal in Paris this summer, winning her event on Thursday by more than eight meters.
Reigning Olympic Track & Field champion Athing Mu will not have the opportunity to defend her 800-meter title in Paris after falling during the event's US Track & Field Trials final on Monday.
About 200 meters into the race, Mu uncharacteristically got tangled up in the middle of the track and lost her footing. Coming to her defense, her coach Bobby Kersee said that she had been spiked, suffered track burns, and hurt her ankle. The 22-year-old filed an appeal that saw USA Track and Field officials sorting through replays, but it was later denied.
As a result, Mu did not qualify to run the 800-meter at the 2024 Summer Games, as the US has a standing rule that only the top three Trials finishers make the official Olympic-bound roster.
At her first-ever Olympics in 2021, Mu took home the gold at the 800-meter final, crossing the line in 1:55.21 to break the American record.
"I’ve coached it, I’ve preached it, I’ve watched it," Kersee told The Associated Press after Mu's appeal was rejected. "And here’s another indication that regardless of how good we are, we can leave some better athletes home than other countries have. It’s part of our American way."
Mu finished more than 22 seconds behind eventual winner Nia Akins, but could still make the Olympic team as part of the US relay pool. Mu was a key part of the Team USA's 4x400-meter gold medal win three years ago in Tokyo.
Sha’Carri Richardson has punched her ticket to the Paris Olympics after finishing first in 100-meter final at the US Olympic Track & Field Trials over the weekend.
Her time — 10.71 — sets a record as the fastest time in the world this year. After finishing, she dropped to one knee and bent her head to savor the moment.
"Definitely still confidence, still my exciting normal self, but more so overwhelmed with just emotions of joy," Richardson said of her post-race celebration. "I know that the hard work I've put into, not just physically on the track but as well as mentally and emotionally to grow into the mature young lady that I am today and that I'm going to grow into was a full-fledged surreal moment for me to actually embrace and be able to show to the world and on the track."
It was a statement-making turn in a comeback story that saw Richardson disqualified from the Tokyo Olympics due to testing positive for THC after that year's Olympic Trials.
"Everything I've been through is everything I have been through to be in this moment right now," Richardson said. "There's nothing I've been through that hasn't designed me to sit right here in front of you to answer this question."
Now, Richardson is expected to bring home some hardware from Paris, having grown into one of the greatest sprinters in the world. She won the 100-meter and 4x100-meter relay events at the World Championships last summer. And before this year's Olympic Trials conclude, she’ll look to also qualify for the 200-meter event.
"In the past three years, I've grown a better understanding of myself, a deeper respect and appreciation for my gift that I have in the sport, as well as my responsibility to the people that believe in and support me," Richardson said. "I feel like all of those components have helped me grow and will continue to help me grow into the young lady that I have been divined and by God been blessed to be."
The US Olympic Track & Field Trials begin on June 21st, kicking off a 10-day quest to determine who will represent the US in Paris this summer.
The crucial meet will take place in Eugene, Oregon, where the top three finishers in each event will punch their ticket to the 2024 Olympics. As with this past week's US Swimming Trials, even the most decorated athletes must work to earn their spot — and one bad performance could undermine four years of preparation.
Reigning 100-meter World Champion Sha'Carri Richardson headlines this year's field, as the 24-year-old looks to qualify for her second Olympic Games and compete in her first. Richardson is a world champion in both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprint, but missed the Tokyo Olympics due to testing positive for THC shortly after the last US Olympic Trials.
Other standouts include 400-meter Olympic gold medal-winning hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who's currently the most decorated athlete in the active women's US Track & Field pool. McLaughlin-Levrone qualified to run in the 200-meter and 400-meter flat races alongside the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympic Trials, but opted to focus solely on her signature event.
800-meter specialist Athing Mu will also be a huge draw this week, as the Olympic gold medalist looks to shake off a lingering hamstring injury while pursuing her second Summer Games. Gold medal-winning pole vaulter Katie Moon will also attempt to qualify for her second-straight Olympic Games.
Ole Miss star McKenzie Long could be Richardson's greatest competition in the 100-meter and 200-meter events, as well as Richardson's Worlds teammate Gabby Thomas in the 200-meter. In field events, watch for Oregon senior Jaida Ross going head-to-head with reigning world champion Chase Jackson in the shot put, as both push for their first Olympic team berth.
Regardless of why you tune in, the US Olympic Trials are a perpetually thrilling and sometimes brutal qualification process. If you're able to make your way to the head of the pack, a shot at Olympic glory might just be waiting at the finish line.
Fans can catch live coverage throughout the Trials via NBC, USA, and Peacock.
Kenyan runner Hellen Obiri won the 128th Boston Marathon on Monday, becoming the first woman to claim back-to-back titles since 2005.
She clocked a total time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, and 37 seconds in a women's division that race organizers described as "historically fast."
"Defending the title was not easy," Obiri said. "Since Boston started, it's only six women [that have repeated]. If you want to be one of them, you have to work extra hard. And I'm so happy because I'm now one of them — I'm now in the history books."
A two-time Olympic silver medalist and two-time 5000m world champion, Obiri is a clear favorite in this summer’s Paris Olympics.
“Last year I was pretty familiar to the marathon, but this year my training was perfect — we trusted everything we were doing,” Obiri said. “When we won last year, of course I was saying I’m going to win this one. Winning is like love. It’s something precious to me.”
Though, she wasn’t without a challenge. Fellow Kenyan Sharon Lokedi finished a mere eight seconds behind Obiri. Edna Kiplagat, who won the 2017 Boston Marathon, completed the podium sweep for Kenya with a third place finish.
Emma Bates, the race's top American finisher, came in 12th.
Obiri wasn't alone in making Boston Marathon history this year. The repeat champ walked away with $150,000 in total prize money allocated from a purse that topped $1 million for the first time ever.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will run in her final Olympics, telling Essence that she plans to retire after the Paris Games this summer.
The three-time Olympic champion sprinter said that she owes it to her family to “do something else.”
“My son needs me. My husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me,” the 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce told Essence.com. “We’re a partnership, a team, and it’s because of that support that I’m able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years. I think I now owe it to them to do something else.”
Fraser-Pryce won her first gold medal in Beijing 2008, becoming the first Caribbean woman to win gold in the women’s 100 meters.
She then retained her title at the London 2012 Olympics, and won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She won another Olympic silver and relay gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.
In 2019, she became the oldest woman to claim a world championship in the 100 meters in Doha. She then won again in 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. In total, she’s won 10 world championships gold medals, including six individual championships.
After finishing third at worlds last year, the Jamaican sprinter is focused on preparing for Paris, where she says she wants to “finish on my own terms.”
“It’s not enough that we step on a track and we win medals,” Fraser-Pryce said. “You have to think about the next generation that’s coming after you and give them the opportunity to also dream — and dream big.”