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Bobbie Jackson | BBC Sports

Volunteer Jean Paton has won the 2024 BBC Sports Personality Unsung Hero award.

Jean, who is 90, has given her time to the Salterns Sailing Club in Lymington, Hampshire, for the best part of four decades.

She is a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) dinghy instructor.

Speaking to BBC One about the children at the sailing club, Jean said: “They are friendly and it is something they can do – it just makes them happy.”

During her time at Salterns, Jean has helped more than 800 children learn to sail.

The club, which is run by children with the support of adults, operates as a not-for-profit organisation and hosts ‘Moppy Camps’ – RYA-accredited sail training weekends – twice yearly.

Paton has been at every camp since they began 20 years ago and has undertaken many roles, which require not only sailing expertise, but also leadership and the ability to inspire confidence in young sailors.

She was presented with the award by Dame Laura Kenny – Britain’s most successful female Olympian – and Radio 2’s Paddy McGuinness at the 71st edition of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards.

Asked what advice she would give to anyone considering being a volunteer, Jean added: “Go ahead and try. There is always a child that needs your abilities.

“A child has a short few years of time when you can get through to them.”

The Unsung Hero Award recognizes the volunteers in sports making a difference in their communities.

Other regional winners were Moon Mughis (Scotland), Liam Mackay (Wales), Rachel Reid (Northern Ireland), Samra Said (London), Ian Bennett (South West), Adam Kenyon (South East), George Sullivan (East), Stewart Nubley (East Midlands), Asha Rage (West Midlands), Bob Purcell (West), Paul McIntyre (North West), Keith Grainge (Yorkshire), Kristen Ingraham-Morgan (East Yorkshire & Lincolnshire), and Stephen Newton (North East & Cumbria).

Des Smith – the chair of the Sheffield Caribbean Sports Club – won the award last year.

Notre Dame Athletics

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Just six weeks into the 2024-25 season, Hannah Hidalgo is your ACC Player of the Week for the third time this year. On Monday, the conference announced that Hidalgo has earned the honor for the sixth time in her young career, passing Jewell Loyd for the most ACC Player of the Week honors in program history.

The sophomore brings home the accolade after averaging 28 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 4.5 steals over the last week in wins over No. 2 UConn and Eastern Michigan. She also shot 58.1 percent from the floor, 53.3 percent from deep and a perfect 12-12 from the charity stripe on the week.

Hidalgo was the leading scorer in both contests and posted a near triple-double over the Huskies with 29 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists. She had a career-high six triples in Notre Dame’s third victory of the season over top-five competition.

By Sean Gregory  | TIME

Few jobs require less physical exertion than rebounding for Caitlin Clark. On an early-November morning in downtown Indianapolis, Clark, the two-time college national player of the year for the University of Iowa, reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year from the Indiana Fever, and emergent American sports icon, sprints to different spots along the three-point line at the Fever practice gym, trying to bang as many shots as possible over a six-minute span. A Fever coach has tasked me with standing under the basket to retrieve her misses. But as Clark runs all over the court to launch long-range bombs, I barely have to move. Swish, swish, swish. She hits 14 shots in a row. A dozen in a row. Eleven in a row. Swish, swish, swish. Nine in a row. Another nine.

Sure, she’s putting on this display in practice. But her ability is still mesmerizing. Clark, 22, takes shots with a degree of difficulty never before witnessed in the women’s game; her signature 30-ft. launches, from near half-court on team logos across America, are akin to home-run balls, hanging high in the air. Can she actually make that flabbergasting attempt? Yes! it turns out. Over and over again.

After her workout I fill Clark in on the statistics from her shooting session: 93 three-pointers in six minutes, good for an 85% success rate.

“Wow,” she responds from the driver’s seat of her gray Lexus GX. “That’s pretty good.”

Nice to know that after wowing so many around the world throughout her record-breaking year, Clark can still impress herself. In February, she set the new NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball scoring record. A few weeks later, she broke Hall of Famer Pete Maravich’s mark, making her the top scorer overall. Her college championship game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged 18.9 million viewers, becoming the second most watched women’s sporting event, outside the Olympic Games, in the history of U.S. television, with American viewership outdrawing that of each game of the 2024 NBA Finals and World Series. And for the first time ever, more people tuned in for the women’s NCAA championship than the men’s. As a pro, she set a rookie record for most three-pointers made in a season, while also setting new all-time WNBA marks for most assists in a season and most assists in a single game. She signed a reported $28 million endorsement deal with Nike, the largest ever for a women’s basketball player. Clark’s Fever appeared in the most watched WNBA games ever on ABC, CBS, ESPN, and ESPN2. The WNBA attracted an all-time record of more than 54 million unique viewers across all its national broadcasting platforms during the regular season, and the league’s overall attendance jumped 48% year over year to its highest level in more than two decades. The Fever broke the WNBA record for home attendance by a single franchise, and Fever games were moved to NBA and NHL arenas in Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., to accommodate the hordes of fans, many donning Clark’s No. 22 jersey. The Washington Mystics-Fever regular-season finale set a new WNBA single-game attendance record of 20,711.

When asked to define her year in one word, Clark chooses historic. Clark, it quickly becomes clear, is polite and down-to-earth but also has not an ounce of false humility. “I’ve been able to captivate so many people that have never watched women’s sports, let alone women’s basketball, and turn them into fans,” she says. Good luck naming another player who altered the trajectory of their entire team sport within five months on the job. Lionel Messi had a monumental influence on Major League Soccer when he arrived in Miami last year, but he was in year 20 of his pro career. Michael Jordan energized the NBA in the mid-1980s, but Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had already put the league on solid footing. While other female athletes have pushed the limits of human achievement and created their own cultures—Serena Williams, Simone Biles, and the stars of the U.S. women’s national soccer team all come to mind—the Clark phenomenon is still unprecedented. It’s one thing to rally around athletes during global spectacles like tennis majors or an Olympics or a World Cup. It’s quite another to turn routine regular-season games in the WNBA, a league neglected for far too long over its 27-year history, into appointment viewing.

To be clear, Clark had plenty of help. The WNBA was already enjoying positive momentum going into the 2024 season, thanks to MVPs like A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, and some of Clark’s fellow rookies, like Angel Reese and Cameron Brink, brought their own followings. But Clark took the league—and the sport—to a new level. Even during a period when investment across women’s sports is surging, team valuations are on the rise, and fan interest and engagement are at all-time highs, her arrival was transformative.

Clark’s skyrocketing fame has upended her life at a dizzying rate. She now has an advance security squad. A fan asked her to sign a sonogram. “There’s just so much weird stuff,” she says. The Golf Channel covered her appearance at an LPGA pro-am event as if she were Tiger Woods in his prime, moving up its studio show by 90 minutes to provide live look-ins at her swings. “She’s box office,” says Atlanta Dream co-owner Renee Montgomery, a former WNBA player. 

At times, the plot proved unpleasant. All year, Clark found herself party to raging debates, even though she rarely, if ever, did anything to perpetrate them. “I tell people I feel like the most controversial person,” says Clark. “But I am not. It’s just because of all the storylines that surround me. I literally try to live and treat everybody in the same exact respectful, kind way. It just confuses me at times.” That her gender played a role in the level of scrutiny is hard to deny. Clark’s introductory press conference with the Fever was a harbinger of things to come: a male reporter appeared to make a cringeworthy attempt at flirtation with Clark; he was suspended and prohibited from covering the Fever. As the season progressed, more flashpoints emerged—whether concerning the marketing advantage granted by her race, fouls that players committed against her, or her exclusion from the U.S. Olympic team—that spurred her so-called defenders to push racist, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ narratives, or even threaten WNBA players directly. She calls this toxicity “upsetting” and “gross,” but during the season she addressed the discourse mostly when asked about it in courtside interviews or at press conferences rather than proactively engaging with it. “It’s not something I can control … and to be honest, I don’t see a lot of it,” she told the Athletic’s Jim Trotter in June. Her extended interview with TIME is the first time she’s talked at length about her year.

“All of this is really speaking to something much larger than Caitlin Clark,” says Theresa Runstedtler, a scholar of African American history at American University. “It’s speaking to our unresolved issues about race, gender, and sexuality in American society, at this particularly fraught moment in our political landscape.” 

Still, in the face of all this heaviness, joy remains the resonant vibe of Clark’s 2024. Her talent brought together communities—in SRO arenas, in sports bars and living rooms, on social media—to celebrate her fire, unselfish play, and ability to score in inconceivable ways when she needed to. Clark certainly fed off this electricity. “You feel powerful,” Clark says. “Instantly, everybody goes crazy. People are invested in the game, they love the game, and that’s what makes it so fun for me. These people aren’t supporting women’s sports to check a box. It’s going to be the new normal.”

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The weekend before our interview, Clark attended back-to-back Taylor Swift shows at Lucas Oil Stadium. She met Swift’s mother and boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. When fans noticed her sitting in a suite, they turned around to take pictures or toss her friendship bracelets. “People are just going crazy that I’m there,” she says. “I thought people would be so in their own world, ready to see Taylor. And it was just completely the opposite.”

Swift gave Clark four bags of Eras Tour merchandise with a note saying Clark was inspiring to watch from afar. She said “Trav and I” were excited to get to a Fever game now that the tour was winding down and invited Clark to attend a Chiefs game with her. 

Clark has always seemed destined for greatness, if not friendship with the biggest pop star in the world. Her path to this women’s-sports paradigm shift started in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Clark played multiple sports as a kid before focusing on her best one. She’s the second of three children (Clark has two brothers); her father Brent Clark is executive vice president at a company that sells and distributes agricultural and industrial parts, and her mother Anne Nizzi-Clark is a retired marketing executive. Jan Jensen, an Iowa assistant coach at the time, first watched Clark play when she was in middle school: she hit a step-back three-pointer and threw a long pass her teammate couldn’t catch. But the ball was on the money. “You could see her swag,” says Jensen. “The way she walked. In a peewee game, when everybody’s like, ‘Your shot hit the rim, let’s go get ice cream,’ she’s like, ‘I don’t want any freaking ice cream. I want to win.’ That’s when the Caitlin Clark mission began.”

Her Catholic family wanted her to pick Notre Dame for college, but Clark shunned the Fighting Irish to play for her home-state school. She put up big numbers at Iowa immediately but had trouble hiding her frustrations. She’d shake her head when someone screwed up. Or take it out on a towel. Or a chair. “If somebody couldn’t catch a pass, she’d throw her hands up and do a pirouette,” says Lisa Bluder, the Iowa head coach during Clark’s years at the school (Bluder retired after last season, and Jensen now runs the program). The coaching staff worked with Clark to improve her body language, showing her video of her outbursts, and she reined it in for the most part. By her junior year, Iowa was knocking off undefeated South Carolina in the national semis to reach the finals against LSU.

That championship game was Clark’s inauguration into the 24-hour sports-news cycle. In the final moments, when it was clear LSU would win, Tigers forward Angel Reese approached Clark and pointed at her ring finger, a bit of trash-talking that sparked needlessly cruel backlash; Reese was labeled “classless” and worse. Clark and Reese were pitted against each other as rivals, a narrative that has carried over to the WNBA. “I don’t get that at all,” says Clark. “We’re not best friends, by any means, but we’re very respectful of one another. Yes, we have had tremendous battles. But when have I ever guarded her? And when has she guarded me?” She downplays Reese’s gesture. “I didn’t think it was taunting,” says Clark. “It really didn’t bother me. It’s just like, ‘Why don’t you talk about them winning? Or the incredible run that we went on that nobody would have thought we would have ever gone on?’ The only thing people cared about was this controversy that was really fabricated and made up, and then that has continued to be the case ever since.” 

Going into her senior year, Clark was in a much different position than women’s basketball players who have come before her. Iowa played summer exhibition games in Italy and Croatia, and with the help of name, image, and likeness (NIL) sponsorship money from brands like Nike, Buick, and the midwestern grocery chain Hy-Vee, Clark treated her teammates to a yacht outing in the Adriatic. “I wouldn’t say it was boozy,” says former Iowa manager Will McIntyre, now director of scouting and technology for the Rutgers women’s team. “I would say bougie.”  

Clark loved college life, and even considered returning for a fifth year instead of entering the 2024 WNBA draft. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NCAA players were granted an extra year of eligibility. Around January, however, Clark knew it was time to move on. It helped that the Fever had won the draft lottery, assuring that Clark, unquestionably the No. 1 pick, would begin her career in the Midwest. She announced her intention to enter the draft at the end of February. Lin Dunn, then the Fever general manager—now a senior adviser—saw the news on X. “I would have done a back handspring if I wasn’t 77 years old,” says Dunn. 

About a month later, on the eve of this year’s NCAA tournament, West Virginia’s coach told his players “let’s send Caitlin Clark packing.” So after Iowa dispatched the Mountaineers in the second round, Clark took a microphone before practice, stood on the scorer’s table, and sang “Country Roads” at the top of her lungs. “I kind of just troll,” Clark says. She has a big, loud personality with people she’s comfortable with. When former Iowa teammate Kate Martin visited Clark’s Indy apartment as a member of the Las Vegas Aces in September, Clark serenaded her with Luke Combs songs on her karaoke machine. “She’s not a good singer at all,” says Martin. (For the record, Temi Fagbenle, who was Clark’s Fever teammate this season and will join Martin on the expansion team the Golden State Valkyries in 2025, disagrees. As a rookie, Clark was tasked with singing happy birthday to the team’s vets. “She wouldn’t just sing a regular happy birthday,” says Fagbenle, who gives Clark’s voice a 7.5 on a 10-point scale and believes her sense of humor and charisma are part of her appeal. “It would be a grandiose performance. She loves her moments.”)

After a much hyped Clark-Reese rematch in the Elite Eight that drew the second largest ESPN audience to any basketball game, college or pro, in a dozen years, the Hawkeyes fell short in the championship game for the second straight year, this time to once again undefeated South Carolina. During the podium celebration Dawn Staley, the venerated Gamecocks coach, clutched the mic and said, “I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport.”

Clark had little time to reflect on her accomplishments. Two days before the WNBA draft, she flew to New York City after staying up late in Los Angeles while receiving the Wooden Award as national player of the year, went straight to the Saturday Night Live set, and collapsed on a couch there from fatigue. She got big laughs during her “Weekend Update” segment needling co-host Michael Che for past jokes about women’s sports. Her favorite: after Che told Clark that he’d pass along a signed apron she gave him to his girlfriend, Clark quipped, “You don’t have a girlfriend, Michael.” The crowd howled. Clark says Jason Sudeikis, who had cheered her on at Iowa games, had suggested that add-on.    

Clark’s segment did include a more serious moment, as she thanked a quintet of Black women—Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, Staley, and Maya Moore, Clark’s basketball hero growing up—for paving the way for her success.  These stars, despite their athletic prowess, were never rewarded with the same level of attention that Clark is now receiving. “America was founded on segregation and to this day is very much about Black and White,” Fagbenle, who loved playing with Clark, writes in a text message. “In a sport dominated by Black/African-American players, White America has rallied around Caitlin Clark. The support looks mostly amazing, sometimes fanatical and territorial, sometimes racist. It seems that the Great White Hope syndrome is at play again.” Going into the WNBA season, Wilson, a two-time league champion and now three-time WNBA MVP, told the Associated Press she thought Clark’s race was a “huge” contributor to her popularity. “It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug,” Wilson said. “That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.” 

Clark is cognizant of the racial underpinnings of her stardom. “I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” says Clark. “A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that. The more we can elevate Black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing.” 

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When Clark and her fellow soon-to-be rookies arrived at the WNBA draft on April 15, it was clear that women’s basketball had entered a new era. Clark, whom fans had seen mostly in her jersey, gym shorts, and ponytail, became the first athlete, in the WNBA or NBA, to be dressed for the draft head-to-toe in Prada, right down to the tinted sunglasses she wore on the “orange carpet.” The event broke another viewership record, as ESPN’s audience more than quadrupled over the previous year. 

Clark’s Fever teammates received a taste of their new reality on a preseason trip to Dallas to play the Wings. For one of only two times this year, Indiana flew commercial–the WNBA instituted charter flights for the regular season–and autograph hounds greeted the team at the gate. “People were literally running after us-slash-Caitlin in the airport,” says Fever guard Lexie Hull. Cameras flashed as they went to baggage claim. The Fever needed to load the bus, so Clark didn’t have time to stop for pictures. One guy chastised her: “Caitlin, you’re not that big-time!” 

“I’m not big-time,” Clark says now. “But you just chased me through the terminal.” 

Christie Sides, the Fever coach this past season, recalls the throng of people gathered to watch Clark walk to the bus before her regular-season debut against the Connecticut Sun. “It was people my age,” says Sides, 47. “It was people my parents’ age. It was people between my and my parents’ age. I saw people crying. I saw people shaking. It made me think of the Beatles. Or Elvis.” 

Despite all the hype, however, the Fever’s season threatened to implode before it ever really got started. Clark committed 10 turnovers in that debut game, a new record for a career opener. The schedule offered no favors to the young team, which also included the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year, Aliyah Boston, the No. 1 overall pick in 2023. The Fever faced the Sun, a league semifinalist this season, and the New York Liberty, the 2024 champs, in its first four contests, before heading west for a three-game swing that included a matchup against the 2023 champs, the Aces. “Clearly, there was zero flow within the team,” says Clark. “It was just so choppy, and no one really knew what the other person was doing. Our defense was really bad.”

Clark was also adjusting to the rigors of the WNBA. “Professional players and professional coaches—this is no disrespect to college women’s basketball—are a lot smarter,” she says. “I love women’s college basketball. But if you go back and watch the way people guarded me in college, it’s almost, like, concerning. They didn’t double me, they didn’t trap me, they weren’t physical. And it’s hard. It’s college. A lot of those women will never go on to play another basketball game in their life. They don’t have the IQ of understanding how the game works. So I completely understand it. And it’s no disrespect at all. They don’t have the IQ. You have to simplify it for girls at that age.” 

There were glimmers of hope during Indiana’s 1-8 start. Clark had a few big scoring games and was second in the league in assists. She was named league Rookie of the Month for May. She wasn’t having trouble getting her shot off. She just wasn’t making enough of them. She was spotting open teammates. She just needed to clean up some of the passes. “I never really got down because I knew everything was so controllable,” says Clark. “I would come home at night and would be like, ‘This is so annoying.’ Because I know I’m literally, like, right there, of being one of the best players in the league.” She holds her forefinger a milinch from her thumb. “I knew I was so close to doing so many amazing things.”

When the Fever hosted the Chicago Sky, and Reese, in the first pro meeting between the two college superstars on June 1, Indiana gutted out a 71-70 victory. Clark had skipped a Noah Kahan concert–“No. 1 on my bucket list”–the night before knowing it would be a bad look to be seen out given the team’s terrible record. But that contest won’t be remembered for the basketball. In the third quarter, Chicago’s Chennedy Carter hip-checked Clark to the floor. Carter was called for a foul, which the next day was upgraded to a flagrant-1 violation. But while the WNBA could revise the ruling, it could not stem the ensuing furor. That Reese jumped off the bench and appeared to cheer Carter only added fuel to another Clark-adjacent fire. Some pundits cited Carter’s foul as evidence that jealous players, particularly Black players, were targeting Clark. The Chicago Tribune weighed in with an editorial, imploring that Clark “must not be allowed to become a target for rule breakers.” The Tribune wrote that Carter’s foul would have been “seen as an assault” outside the sports arena. The intense commentary came with consequences. Security had to intervene at the Sky’s hotel a few days later when a man approached Carter with a camera. “I’ve been called every racial slur imaginable lately and my teammates have had it even worse,” Sky forward Brianna Turner wrote on X.

Clark casts aside any notion that envious opponents were coming after her. “I never thought I was being targeted,” says Clark. “Obviously, that shouldn’t ever happen within a game. But basketball is physical. Your emotions can get the best of you. My emotions have gotten the best of me many times.” She says she did not see Reese cheering from the bench. “I don’t even know if she really knew what happened,” says Clark. “Honestly, I don’t think she was cheering because somebody hit me. I really don’t think that would be the case. I hope not.” Reese’s representatives did not make her available for this article.

“A lot of people that wanted to have opinions on what was happening probably didn’t even watch half the games that they were trying to have a take on and hadn’t supported the W for a really long time,” says Clark.

The day after the incident, in a matchup against the Liberty, Clark ran into a Jonquel Jones screen and ruptured her eardrum. “It was vibrating,” Clark says. “My hearing was really messed up.” She shot 1-10 from the field in a 36-point drubbing. A five-day reprieve in the schedule came at the perfect moment. 

During these off days, Clark shot extremely well during drills. “That gave me a lot of confidence,” says Clark. “It just reiterates, ‘You are one of the best shooters.’” In Indiana’s first game back, Clark hit seven three-pointers en route to a 30-point game and a Fever victory. On the bus, Clark texted her agent that she hoped that performance helped her case to make the Olympic team for Paris. Clark’s agent responded immediately: I have to call you. 

“And I’m like, ‘Sh-t,’” says Clark. 

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The news, predictably, was unpleasant: the Olympic roster was about to leak, and Clark wasn’t on it. USA basketball officials hopped on a call with Clark. “They were like, ‘Yeah, we haven’t selected you. Obviously, we think the world of how you play and blah, blah, blah.’” She wasn’t really listening. She knew she was good enough to be on the team. And she had heard rumblings that she would be. 

At the same time, she understood the decision. The 12 players selected included many future Hall of Famers and Olympic veterans. “A point everybody was making was like, ‘Who are you taking off the team?’” Clark says. “And that was a tremendous point.” Clark also admits that during her early stretch for the 3-9 Fever, “I gave them a lot of reasons to keep me off the team with my play.”

Many people, however, rushed to her defense. The gist of the pro-Clark case: women’s basketball missed a golden marketing opportunity to grow the sport, given Clark’s popularity. It’s an argument that Clark wholly rejects. “I don’t want to be there because I’m somebody that can bring attention,” says Clark. “I love that for the game of women’s basketball. But at the same time, I want to be there because they think I’m good enough. I don’t want to be some little person that is kind of dragged around for people to cheer about and only watch because I’m sitting on the bench. That whole narrative kind of upset me. Because that is not fair. It’s disrespectful to the people that were on the team, that had earned it and were really good. And it’s also disrespectful to myself. ”

For the second time in about a week, Clark was leading the sports-news cycle. No matter that the NBA Finals had just tipped off. Everyone had a hot take on Clark, except, it seemed, for Clark. “I have a great skill of just blocking it out,” says Clark. “I don’t care what people say about me.”

Clark told Sides the snub “woke a monster.” Making the 2028 team “is a huge, huge goal,” she says, and she believes being left off the Paris roster “will definitely motivate me my entire career.” She calls her exclusion a “blessing.” Not only did it fuel her to prove that she belonged on the team, it also granted her a much needed break: there’d be a one-month pause in the WNBA schedule to accommodate players competing at the Olympics.

The monster arose almost immediately, as the Fever began to turn their season around. Indiana went on a four-game winning streak in June. Clark recorded the first-ever rookie triple-double (at least 10 points, assists, and rebounds) during a home victory against the Liberty. Right before the WNBA All-Star Game, Clark had 19 assists, a new WNBA single-game record, against the Wings. She started in the All-Star Game—against the U.S. Olympic team—and her 10 assists helped her side to a 117-110 victory. Most importantly, her All-Star experience further dispelled the notion that her pro colleagues were out to put her in her place. Her fellow All-Stars, Clark says, “are all looking to me to call the plays. It just showed the sign of respect they really do have for me.” 

During the first week of the Olympic break, she escaped to Cabo San Lucas with her boyfriend, former Iowa basketball player Connor McCaffery, who spent the past season as a basketball-development staffer with the Pacers and is now an assistant coach at Butler University. She drank “a million” Shirley Temples, with Sprite; devoured French brioche; and read Emily Henry’s Happy Place. Refreshed, she returned to Indianapolis, where the Fever practiced over the break, participating in bonding activities like a wiffle-ball home-run derby. Clark once again displayed her troll side. “Nobody else was able to hit,” she says. “I was smashing bombs, and it was pissing everybody off. It was so good. Because I was talking crap, and then I backed it up.” 

When the Fever returned to the court for games, they won seven of their first eight. Clark led the team to the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and raised her play to All-WNBA First Team level. During the dog days of August, when sports radio is usually obsessing over the upcoming NFL season, hosts debated the Rookie of the Year race between Reese and Clark, who set a new WNBA record for double-doubles (at least 10 points and rebounds) in a season. 

By this point, Clark had gone global. The owner of a Chinese restaurant in West Des Moines recently told Clark’s mother that she overheard two kids talking about her daughter on a Taiwanese subway. Clark watch parties were held in Iceland. Fever president Allison Barber, who has since left the franchise to launch a youth sports complex for girls, was driving through northwest Indiana this summer when she stopped for soup. The owner of the joint saw the Fever logo on her shirt and asked if she had a connection to the team; as Barber was walking to her car, the owner chased her, holding his phone. He asked if she could say hello to her elderly dad, a Clark diehard in Greece.  

Charles Whitehead, a logistics worker from Orange, N.J., drove three hours to the Mohegan Sun Arena to watch Indiana take on Connecticut in the first round of the playoffs. Whitehead paid some $500 for his seat near the front row. “Caitlin got me here,” says Whitehead, 35, who’s wearing a red Clark Fever jersey. He points across the court, where Clark is signing autographs less than an hour before tipoff. “Rock star,” he says. I wonder if, before Clark’s emergence, Whitehead ever pictured himself wearing a women’s basketball jersey and paying good money for WNBA playoff tickets. “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,” he says. “Never, never, never, never.”

Clark thought Indiana could make it to the championship. “People would probably laugh if they read that in this article,” she says. “But I was being dead serious.” In the end, however, the Sun swept the Fever—but not before Clark found herself at the center of one last controversy: in Game 1, Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington poked Clark in the eye while trying to deflect a pass. The contact became more fodder for social media and elsewhere. After USA Today’s Christine Brennan asked Carrington if she intended to hit Clark in the eye—“Obviously, it’s never intentional,” Carrington said—the WNBA players union publicly called for Brennan’s credentials to be revoked, saying the interview was “a blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media.” After the Sun eliminated the Fever, Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas said, “I think that in my 11-year career I never experienced the racial comments [like] from the Indiana Fever fan base.”

This whole contretemps still annoys Clark. “Never once did that cross my mind, that it was on purpose,” she says. “I’ve been poked in the eye many times playing basketball. It happens.” Clark feels debate about intent reveals a gender double standard. “If that would have happened in the NBA, do you think people would have showed up the next day and been like, ‘Hey, Tyrese Haliburton, did you poke Steph Curry in the eye on purpose?’” she says. While Clark says she wasn’t aware that the union was going to reprimand Brennan, she supported its decision. “That whole line of questioning that [Carrington] got was not appropriate, and I did not like that,” she says. 

Many observers seem inclined to reserve judgment on Clark and her approach to confronting off-court issues given that she was a rookie adjusting to life as an athletic icon. “She should be afforded some grace,” Fagbenle texts. “Understanding the racial tensions in this country, could she have been more proactive about condemning her racist fans’ words and distancing herself from them? Sure–if she’s comfortable standing up for others and challenging her racist fans, unsolicited–but not everyone is built like that.” When asked if Clark did enough to combat the racist threats against other players, Montgomery, the Atlanta Dream co-owner and former player, declined to comment. Dream forward Cheyenne Parker-Tyus, meanwhile, says she thinks Clark handled it all well. “I’m not concerned about her and how she stands with racial comments or hateful comments,” she says. “She feels the way we all feel. She’s made that clear.” 

“I know people want her to say more and do more, and I’m like, at 22 years old, how many of us have the skill set, have the ability to be able to communicate?” says former Fever star and Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings, whose franchise rookie scoring record Clark broke this year. “She’s a game changer on the court, but having to be a game changer off the court and get into the politics part of it, I don’t know if that’s her responsibility.”

While Terri Jackson, executive director of WNBA players association, hopes Clark leans into her voice more down the road, “let’s be clear,” she says. “The responsibility for setting the tone and sending a message was absolutely at the league and team, but particularly at the league, level.” (During her WNBA Finals press conference, commissioner Cathy Engelbert promised to “attack” racism against its players “multidimensionally.” She hinted at potential online controls to help clean up the discourse. “There are some technology solutions out there that we could deploy and employ,” Engelbert said.)

“What comes with being a professional athlete is speaking on important issues,” says four-time WNBA champion and five-time Olympic gold medalist Sue Bird. “And so I imagine she’s going to continue to educate and get better at that as well. In today’s world, people will use you if you don’t speak about your own feelings and thoughts. So by getting more comfortable and confident in your voice, you can eliminate that.”

Clark says she really does stay off social media during the season and wasn’t aware that talk about the eye poke, for example, was percolating until she was asked about it. “It’s something I’m trying to navigate,” she says. “I’m trying to find a balance while being a rookie.” But she hears the calls imploring her to step up for her colleagues, particularly in a league known for its outspokenness on social-justice issues. “I’m probably the most popular player in the league at the moment, and somebody a lot of people turn to to have a voice on this type of stuff,” says Clark. “I hope we can do a better job as a league of protecting our players and putting better resources around them to make it a safer environment. And obviously, there’s only so much you can police on social media, because we don’t have full control over social media. But there is real responsibility. I understand that, and I acknowledge that.” So what’s her message to bad-faith actors harassing others in her name? “Just stop,” says Clark. “Because that’s not who I am.”

---

To get to lunch after her workout, I trail Clark down a rainy back alleyway that smells like garbage, past the “Ray’s Trash Service” bins, through the kitchen, down a narrow flight of stairs to a private room of a restaurant scouted by her security team. (She says her team gave her a 30-page pdf with instructions on how to navigate movements at the Swift concert.) I tell Clark and Hull, who has joined us, that the walk reminded me of the famous scene from Goodfellas where the mafioso played by Ray Liotta enters the Copacabana through the kitchen. They haven’t seen the film but appreciate the comparison. “We’re mobsters,” says Clark.

Over carnitas and fish tacos, we talk about their new head coach, Stephanie White, who had been hired three days earlier. Indiana had dismissed Sides in October; management wanted a coach with more playoff experience. White, a former Fever player, coached the Sun the past two seasons and led Indiana to  the WNBA Finals as head coach in 2015. Clark insists she had nothing to do with the change. “I’m actually not the general manager of the team,” she says. “Believe it or not!” adds Hull. 

Clark’s eyes are glued to the TV, where the USC women are playing Ole Miss on the opening day of college basketball. “I feel like if I was out there, I would literally have 50,” says Clark. “The college game is so much easier than professional.” 

But Clark knows she can get better. She expresses admiration for White’s game plans against the Fever. “We didn’t usually have the best game plan back,” Clark said when White stopped by the gym during her workout. “Like, here’s a ball screen, Caitlin. Figure it out.” 

At one point talk turned to Clark’s high school soccer career. “I would get so many yellow cards,” Clark said. 

“You still do,” said White. “What are you talking about?” 

Indeed, Clark finished her season with six technical fouls, tied for second most in the WNBA. “I only probably deserved, like—two.”

“Haaaaa!” White yelled. “She’s a comedian, too.” 

Controlling Clark’s fire has always been a challenge for her coaches. It makes her special, but techs can come back to bite you. Same with her mistakes: Clark shattered the WNBA’s all-time season record for turnovers, but you want her throwing some high-risk passes. As for other areas of improvement, Clark’s working on her midrange shooting. “I used to have a middie bag,” she says. “I just never had to use it.” And she wants to get stronger. “Teams’ No. 1 tactic of stopping me is, ‘be physical with her,’” Clark says. “Because they know either I don’t like it or it can throw me off.”

Speculation was swirling about whether Clark would play in Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 league founded by Stewart and Napheesa Collier that begins in January. The startup has attracted attention as a way for WNBA players to make more money without having to play overseas. Still, Clark—who made $75,535 in salary her first year on the Fever but thanks to her many endorsements is doing just fine financially—is taking a pass. “I didn’t rule out doing it in the future, but this year is just not the best for me,” she says. She thinks spending the winter lifting weights and working solo in the gym will elevate her game. “It’s going to be good for me to do my own thing and have my own space,” she says. “I kind of want to just stay out of the spotlight.”

She’ll be back there soon enough. “Personally, I’m just scratching the surface of what I can do and hopefully how I can change the world and impact people,” she says. “There’s also been so many people that are not involved in women’s sports, that are just in the workforce, or whatever they do, and they’re just like, ‘Thank you for what you do for women.’ I’ve heard that a million times.” With lunch wrapped, Clark drives to White’s press conference, where she sits front row with Boston and Hull. Her day concludes at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse where she watches McCaffery’s Butler team win its season opener. 

Fifth grader Ellie Dillon and a friend—both wearing Clark shirts—wait more than a half hour after the game to catch Clark, who as she’s leaving the gym with McCaffery stops to give them autographs. “It almost doesn’t feel real,” says Dillon moments after meeting Clark. “That that’s actually her, standing right in front of you.”

By Molly McElwee

Jasmine Paolini blasts her nation to the title with a 6-2 6-1 win over Rebecca SramkovaJasmine Paolini blasts her nation to the title with a 6-2 6-1 win over Rebecca Sramkova

Jasmine Paolini declared it a “dream” as she clinched Italy’s first Billie Jean King Cup crown in 11 years, after defeating a plucky Slovakia team in Malaga.

Italy’s No. 1 Paolini raised her arms in celebration after dispatching Rebecca Sramkova 6-2 6-1 to secure Italy’s 2-0 victory as her teammates stormed the court in jubilant celebrations.
It was fitting that the final point was on Paolini’s racquet as she has led this Italian side with aplomb, combining in both singles and doubles against Japan and Poland, taking four wins from five matches this past week.

This trophy came as redemption for an Italian team that featured four of the players – Paolini, Martina Trevisan, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Lucia Bronzetti – who suffered the heartbreak of losing to Canada in the 2023 final. The team also includes 37-year-old Sara Errani, who with this win became the player with the longest gap between Billie Jean King Cup titles, following her victory with Italy in 2013.

“Unbelievable year,” Paolini said. “It’s a crazy year, I don’t know to finish like this with a title in Billie Jean King Cup it’s amazing, I don’t have words to describe it. I’m trying just to enjoy every moment. It’s important to understand where you are, I feel lucky to be in this position, in this team. I think we played unbelievable this week.

“Today I was repeating to myself you’re going to give 100 percent. If we win we win, if you lose we accept that. I fight for every ball.”

It caps off Paolini’s incredible breakthrough year. Though she is 28 and has been a top 50 player for the best part of three years, Paolini’s run to the Roland-Garros and Wimbledon finals earlier this season proved her mettle as one of the world’s best. Now the world No. 4, she won her first WTA 1000 title in Dubai this past February, doubles gold at the Olympics with Errani and reached the season end WTA Finals in another milestone ticked off.

Paolini has said she previously struggled in the team format as the pressure would sometimes get to her when representing her country. But 2023 changed that and set her on her way to the most remarkable season, culminating in capturing the greatest team trophy in women’s tennis on Wednesday night.

Asked what she would have said, if she were told that 2024 would bring her two major finals and this trophy, Paolini replied simply, “Impossible. This year was crazy, and to finish like that, it’s a dream.”
Runners-up Slovakia were the surprise package of this tournament. The smallest country in the Finals, Slovakia reached this championship tie by defeating three Grand Slam nations on the bounce – USA, Australia and Great Britain. They were hoping to win their first title since 2002, but this final proved a step too far for the ultimate underdogs.
Lucia Bronzetti was called up by Tathiana Garbin to start Italy off in the opening match in a clash against Slovakia’s Viktoria Hruncakova. This was only Bronzetti’s second singles match ever in the tournament after she debuted in the semi-final against Poland earlier this week. She made it two from two on Wednesday night.

She and Hruncakova exchanged breaks in the opening three games, but then Bronzetti began her charge. She played a solid set and lifted her level on the big points to take the first set 6-2 in 40 minutes.
Hruncakova tried to hustle back, and was a break up in the second set, but Bronzetti was not going away. She played the break points better than her opponent and closed the match out with style 6-2 6-4.

It put Italy well on their way, with Paolini the on-paper favourite in the second singles match against Sramkova.

Sramkova had a 100 percent winning record at these finals, but for all her steely resolve in beating Danielle Collins, Ajla Tomljanovic and Katie Boulter, she looked nervous and struggled with her forehand throughout.

Paolini pounced, taking the first set 6-2 and then went a break up to 2-0 in the second. Sramkova came alive next and broke back with a searching backhand down the line but it only turned out to be a brief glimmer of hope for the Slovakian side.

Paolini broke back to love immediately, a cross-court forehand winner getting the crowd on their feet and she did not look back, closing out the match in 65 minutes.

Italy captain Garbin, who recovered from surgery for a tumour late last year, said this moment felt even more special because of what they had been through together as a team.

“I came here this year, and for me was a gift, because as you know, last year was a difficult moment,” she said. “But I have all the team behind me, and that’s why on the bench [I] try to give courage and to support them, because is what they have done to me in the tough moments. I’m very proud of these girls, these human beings, not just the champions they are. They are really a great team.”

The Slovakians were understandably devastated to fall short, but said they would take the positives from their brilliant run.

“For now, these emotions are a little bit sad, but I think we need to look at the whole thing, the whole picture, and what we did here,” Hruncakova said.

“It’s absolutely amazing, and I think we need couple hours, maybe couple days to actually realise it. We’re all gonna realise that this was something before the tournament, if someone would tell this to us, we would be thrilled.”

Dee Lab | Just Women’s Sports

After completing a perfect 2023/24 season with Barcelona FC, Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmatí won her second-straight Ballon d’Or award on Monday.

“I always say this is not something that you can do alone,” the 26-year-old said, crediting her teammates in her acceptance speech. “I’m so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful players who help me to keep growing into a better player.”

Only one other women’s footballer has won the award twice: Bonmatí’s teammate for club and country, Alexia Putellas, who clocked in 10th in this year’s final tally. The two now hold a combined four-year streak in winning soccer’s top honor.

The only other recipients in the award’s six-year history are USWNT star Megan Rapinoe and Norway’s Ada Hegerberg.

It’s Barcelona or bust at Ballon d’Or

Barcelona’s 2024 triumphs — winning a historic quadruple of Liga F, Champions League, Supercopa, and Copa de la Reina titles — earned the team Club of the Year honors last night.

That success was mirrored on the individual level, as well. Barça players owned the award’s Top 3 spots, with forwards Caroline Graham Hansen and Salma Paralluelo just behind Bonmatí in the final vote.

Olympic gold earns USWNT stalwarts votes

Of the five USWNT players on the Ballon d’Or’s 30-athlete shortlist, four landed in the Top 10, buoyed by their gold medal performance at the 2024 Paris Games. USWNT captain Lindsey Horan finished at No. 5 alongside the “Triple Espresso” strike squad of No. 4 Sophia Smith, No. 6 Mal Swanson, and No. 9 Trinity Rodman. 

The lone goalkeeper on the list, USWNT star Alyssa Naeher, came in at No. 17. The Ballon d’Or does not include a separate individual award for women’s football’s top goalkeeper.https://www.instagram.com/p/DBrs9iagbsR/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=14&wp=1080&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fjustwomenssports.com&rp=%2Freads%2Fbonmati-wins-second-ballon-dor-award-emma-hayes-named-top-womens-football-coach%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A831.5%2C%22ls%22%3A180.89999999850988%2C%22le%22%3A180.89999999850988%7D

Meanwhile, USWNT boss Emma Hayes brought home historic hardware of her own.

After leading Chelsea FC to a fifth-straight WSL title before winning Olympic gold with the USWNT, Hayes received the first-ever Women’s Coach of the Year award last night.

“I just want to say a big thank you to all the staff and players from both teams,” Hayes said after receiving the inaugural honor.

“Football is a team game and I’m very grateful to have led some amazing teams this year, so this award is for everyone who has been a part of the US team and Chelsea.”

Hermoso’s advocacy honored

Former Barcelona forward and Spanish national Jenni Hermoso — who now plays for Tigres in Mexico’s Liga MX — became the third person and first woman to win the humanitarian Socrates Award in last night’s ceremony.

The award recognizes Hermoso’s efforts advocating for the advancement of the women’s game, equality at all levels of soccer, and her fight against sexual harassment in sports ignited by the nonconsensual kiss from ex-Spanish federation president Luis Rubiales during the 2023 World Cup trophy ceremony.

“Women’s football deserves a place for new and future generations,” the 34-year-old urged in her speech before imploring further action from the global soccer community.

“I’d like to ask all of you to get together and work together in order to make a better world possible and to make football become what little girls deserve for the future.”

Ballon d’Or ceremony spurs conversation about persisting inequities

While the Ballon d’Or has made strides by instituting a women’s football award in 2018, the ceremony continues to be fall during a FIFA women’s international window. The scheduling makes it near-impossible for many women’s football nominees to attend what is arguably the sport’s biggest night.

Last night, only a handful of European-based players were able to make the Paris event.

Even more, the Ballon d’Or ballot only honors one individual woman footballer, while the men’s night bestows three additional trophies: the Yashin for best goalkeeper, the Gerd Müller for top goalscorer, and the Kopa for best U-21 player. Plus, while 100 journalists vote for the final men’s tally, only 50 are tapped to weigh in on the women’s award.

By Martyn Thomas

1 day ago

Fans will be able to plot their team’s path to Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 glory once Thursday’s eagerly anticipated draw has been made.

Now that all 16 teams for the expanded showpiece tournament have been confirmed the next step is to find out who each team will be playing during the pool stage.

The qualified nations have been seeded based on Monday’s World Rugby Women’s Rankings and divided into four bands.

With exactly one year to go until Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 kicks off
in Sunderland, excitement is sweeping across the host nation in anticipation of what
will be the biggest and most accessible celebration of women’s rugby ever.

Register now for the ticket presale

The top four seeds have been prepopulated into the first position of each pool, with England in Pool A, Canada in Pool B, New Zealand in Pool C and France in Pool D.

You can find out who will join them in those pools by watching the official draw live on the BBC and RugbyPass TV from 19:20 BST (GMT+1) on Thursday.

To help you prepare for the draw, we have taken a closer look at each of the four bands.

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Band one

Teams: England, Canada, New Zealand, France

How they qualified: England were guaranteed their place at the tournament as hosts, while the Black Ferns are defending champions and Canada and France also made it due to their performance at Women’s RWC 2021, where they contested the bronze final.

Team to avoid: Canada are arguably the most-improved side in international rugby, but no team from the other three bands will want to be drawn in Pool A. The Red Roses are on a 20-match winning run and have lost just once in their previous 51 Tests.

John Mitchell’s side head into the draw with a record World Rugby Women’s Rankings rating having become the first team – men’s or women’s – to break through the 97-point barrier with victory against Canada last weekend.

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Band two

Teams: Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Italy

How they qualified: Ireland booked their ticket to England by finishing third in the Women’s Six Nations standings earlier this year. Australia, Scotland and Italy secured their passage at the end of WXV 2.

D’Arcy Maine, ESPN.com

It’s been an up-and-down season for Coco Gauff. After winning her first major title at the 2023 US Open, the now 20-year-old started her year by earning the trophy at Auckland and reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open but never quite found the same hot streak that highlighted her 2023.

Gauff, who won the French Open doubles title and was a flag-bearer for the United States at the Olympics, struggled during the summer and failed to defend her titles at Cincinnati and the US Open, losing in the Round of 32 and Round of 16, respectively. Following her disappointing result in New York, she parted ways with coach Brad Gilbert and brought in Matt Daly as his replacement.

Now, as the season’s end rapidly approaches, it seems as if Gauff has finally hit her stride again.

Perhaps in part buoyed by the new energy on her team, or the change of scenery during the Asian swing of the tour, Gauff won her biggest title of the season on Sunday at the 1000-level China Open behind a dominant 6-1, 6-3 victory over Karolina Muchova in the final. With 24 winners and a strong serving performance on the day — and epic points like the one below — Gauff was virtually unstoppable against the equally athletic and resurgent Muchova.

Throughout her run in Beijing, Gauff was unflappable and recorded multiple comeback victories, including against Paula Badosa in the semifinals. With the title — the eighth of her career — Gauff became the youngest champion at the event in 14 years and the first American since Serena Williams in 2013. She is now 7-1 in singles finals and became the first woman in the Open era to win her first seven hard-court finals. Gauff was unaware of that stat when asked about it by a reporter following the match but called it “pretty cool.”

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“I feel like every tournament, it’s a new stat or new record,” Gauff said. “I’m very thankful. I would be excited to see when the next stat is, the next girl, I don’t know, who will be the first person to do this since Coco Gauff. I’m excited to see that.

“It means a lot when I saw that the last American woman to win this was Serena Williams. Honestly, anytime my name is mentioned in whatever sentence hers is. It’s like a huge honor to do something no one has ever done before.”

Gauff now returns to the top five, after falling out of it after the US Open, and currently sits in the fifth spot in the race for the year-end WTA Finals. She is next in action this week at Wuhan, also a 1000-level tournament, and another title would firmly secure her ticket to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Here’s what else you might have missed last week from around the tennis world:

Alcaraz wins again
Playing the men’s final on Wednesday (and throwing off just about everyone’s internal clocks in the sport), Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner at the China Open. As we’ve come to expect when these players meet, it was a great battle between two of the brightest young superstars in the game with Alcaraz ultimately eking out a 6-7(6), 6-4, 7-6(3) victory in three hours and 21 minutes. It was the longest match in tournament history.

Alcaraz, who now owns a 6-4 career record over Sinner and has won all three of their meetings this season, called his rival “the best player in the world” after the match.

“He could [have won] in two, I could win in two, he could win in three,” Alcaraz said. “It was a really close match … The level that he’s playing, it’s unbelievable. It’s a really high quality of tennis. Of shots, physically, mentally, he’s a beast.”

With the win, Alcaraz returns to the No. 2 spot in the rankings, behind only Sinner. And despite the close match and their ever-evolving rivalry, the two provided the latest example of just how unique tennis is by sharing a private jet together just hours later as they made their way to Shanghai for the next tournament.

“It’s a weird thing, but I think tennis is different than other sports because of it,” Alcaraz later told Tennis TV. “Because we are fighting against each other, three-hour match, really close … At the end I got the win, and then two hours later we are in the same plane having some laughs, making jokes, talking about life and acting like nothing happened before.”

Both Alcaraz and Sinner were victorious in their opening two matches in Shanghai and are now into the Round of 16.

And prior to the China Open — which is a 500-level for men — Alcaraz and Gauff were chosen to represent the tours, visiting the Forbidden City in traditional clothing for the occasion. During the trophy ceremony on Sunday, Gauff was asked about their joint visit and the fact they had both gone on to win the titles.

“Someone in press told me that it was going to bring me luck,” Gauff said. “And I said ‘I don’t know, I don’t want to jinx it.’ Then Carlos won but at that time it was only the round of 16 for me. I guess the Imperial Palace brought us luck and maybe I will pay a visit again next year and get the same luck.”

Halep’s return
After receiving a wild card for entry at the Hong Kong 125 Open, Simona Halep notched her first victory in over two years with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 win over Arina Rodionova in the first round on Wednesday.

It marked her first match since May due to injury and just her third match since coming back from a doping ban nearly two years ago. Halep was initially given a four-year suspension after testing positive for roxadustat but it was reduced in March to nine months and she was immediately cleared to play. She made her return at the Miami Open later that month. She played in just one other event before her comeback was derailed by a knee injury.

Wednesday’s victory was an emotional one for the former world No. 1 and two-time major champion.

“Words cannot describe the feeling of being out there on court competing — and winning my first match after such a long period — in the sport I love,” she wrote on Instagram.

Halep, 33, lost her next match in straight sets to Anna Blinkova on Thursday.

Greatest introduction of all time?
After a brief tour hiatus following his third-round exit at the US Open last month, Novak Djokovic — who did help lift Serbia to victory over Greece in Davis Cup group play in the interim — returned to competition in Shanghai on Saturday.

And while the year hasn’t exactly gone to plan for the 24-time major champion, Djokovic was still given perhaps the ultimate hero’s welcome by the tournament as he was introduced to the crowd as “the greatest of all time” while taking the court for his opening match against American Alex Michelsen.

In his first match in China since 2019, the 37-year-old Djokovic was challenged by Michelsen and needed tiebreakers in both sets, but got the straight-set victory to advance. Despite the test and some rust, Djokovic was clearly thrilled by how the day transpired.

“Today on the court was marvelous,” Djokovic said later. “To experience the introduction and the support and love from Chinese fans in this way is exactly the reason why I came.”

Osaka making moves
Nearing the end of her first year back on tour following maternity leave, former No. 1 Naomi Osaka is now just outside the top 50 after a fourth-round run at the China Open. The four-time major champion, who recorded a three-set win over No. 21 seed Yulia Putinseva in the second round, looked to be on the brink of her biggest win of the season against Gauff in the Round of 16 before retiring due to a back injury ahead of the third set.

After Gauff graciously helped Osaka off the court, Osaka explained on social media that she had “locked [her] back up” in practice ahead of the match and it got progressively worse as play went on. “Totally worth it though,” she added.

While not the result she had wanted — and she has since had to withdraw from Wuhan qualifying and the upcoming Japan Open because of the injury — the China Open also marked Osaka’s first with new coach Patrick Mouratoglou. After parting ways with Wim Fissette last month, Osaka brought in Williams’ (and Halep’s) former coach and told reporters ahead of the China Open she hoped it would be a “long-term” partnership. She also admitted she was still “a little nervous around him” because of his reputation.

“I think the fact that he was Serena’s coach for me made me want to avoid him just because his persona is so big,” Osaka said. “Like, this isn’t rude because I found out it’s not true, but I didn’t know — this sounds so bad — I didn’t know if he was a good coach or he coached Serena. Does that make sense? I’m like, I’m just going to do my own thing.

“Then I met him, talked to him, worked with him on the court. He absolutely is a really good coach. I’m really glad that he’s taking this project on, as well.”

And Mouratoglou seemed pretty pleased with their debut event together, calling the experience “so rich in terms [of] learning.”

Changes for Team Iga
Osaka and Gauff aren’t the only ones shaking things up with their teams before year’s end. World No. 1 Iga Swiatek announced the end of her three-year partnership with coach Tomasz Wiktorowski on Friday.

Swiatek won four of her five major titles and took over the top ranking for the first time with Wiktorowski by her side. He was also with her during her 37-match win streak in 2022.

Swiatek thanked him for his help and guidance in an Instagram post.

“Our main goal was to become [the] No. 1 player in the world and coach Wiktorowski was the one who said it first,” she wrote. “We aimed very high, we headed to every tournament with a clear goal to win it … it happened thanks to my entire sports team.”

Swiatek, who hasn’t played since losing in the quarterfinals at the US Open early last month, added she would be spending a “couple of weeks” to find a new coach and was in talks with “coaches from abroad” as she was “ready to take the next step” in her career.

She has withdrawn from this week’s tournament in Wuhan and it is unclear when she next plans to play. She has already clinched her spot for the WTA Finals, which gets underway on Nov. 2.

By: Selina Munsamy | GNews

The 2024 SABC Woman In TV Award winner, Thato Moeng, is still revelling in the atmosphere of the prestigious evening that brought together some of the most inspiring women in sports. Thato reflects on the journey that led her to this remarkable moment.

“Being acknowledged for something that is my passion by my peers is truly a pat on the back,” Thato expressed, highlighting the whirlwind of a year that included major tournaments like the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Comrades Marathon, AFCON, EURO’s, and the Olympics. “The award has allowed me to reflect, as I prepare for the next challenge.”

For Thato, the road to success in sports broadcasting has been paved with both triumphs and challenges. As a female broadcaster, she faced her share of setbacks, but her unwavering belief in her purpose has been her guiding light.

“Whatever the challenge, I always remember why I started. It is not about me, it is about the story, it is about sport,” she stated. Thato’s resilience has been key to her growth. “With every pushback, difficult situation, and countless ‘No’s’, you reset, rethink, and push on nonetheless.”

Shongwe, Moeng and Nokwe Elevated to Momentum gsport Awards Stage

When asked what sets women apart in the field of sports broadcasting, Thato emphasised the value of diversity. “We are all so different and so special. We see things from varied angles, and that already sets anyone apart as a storyteller.”

She encourages aspiring female presenters to embrace the ever-evolving world of media. “When I started as a journalist, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram didn’t exist. Today, we have YouTube and so many other platforms to reach the masses. Use them.”

Thato has witnessed remarkable changes in the coverage of women’s sports, particularly during her time at SuperSport. Recalling one of her earliest assignments, a WAFCON qualifier for Banyana Banyana in an empty stadium, she contrasted it with the vibrant atmosphere of today’s matches.

“Fast forward 14 years later, and I can take my daughter to a midweek Banyana game that’s almost packed to the rafters.”
2024 SABC Woman In TV Award Winner, Thato Moeng
She credits SuperSport’s commitment to women’s sports and campaigns like “Here for Her” for the ongoing growth and attention.

“2023, or as I called it 2020SHE, was a phenomenal year for women’s sport, especially in South Africa, with the ICC Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup, the Netball World Cup, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The biggest flex was our all-female broadcast crew at the Netball World Cup. That’s out-of-this-world boss moves.”

The fast-paced, dynamic environment of live sports broadcasting requires intense preparation, a trait Thato has mastered over the years.

“Always be prepared, and after preparing, prepare some more. The irony is that sometimes you’re only on air for 2 minutes, other times for 15 hours. Either way, you need to be ready.”
For Thato, live television has an exhilarating rush that keeps her on her toes. “Live TV has this adrenaline rush about it. It’s sink or swim, like Russian roulette, it’s beautiful.”

Thato’s message to young women pursuing a career in media is simple yet profound, “Be stubborn about your dreams. Work at them, reach out to people, and do not be afraid of rejection. It is not a ‘No’, it is just another opportunity to rework, elevate, and be better.”

She emphasises the importance of investing in one’s craft. “Study, really invest in your craft. Write, read, watch. Immerse yourself in your passion.”

Thato Moeng’s journey from a young journalist to an award-winning sports broadcaster is a testament to the power of perseverance, passion, and preparation. With her unstoppable drive, she continues to pave the way for the next generation of women in sports media.

By: Luke Barry | DirtFish

DirtFish learns about Norbert and Francesca Maior’s relationship in and out of the car, and what’s next for them

World Rally Championship drivers having siblings that also compete is far from a rarity.

World champions like Colin McRae and Petter Solberg fall into the category – their brothers, Alister and Henning, even competed against them in period.

It happens at all levels, and in all time periods. Take today’s M-Sport Ford drivers Adrien Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster as another example. Adrien’s brother, Maxime, rallies in France while Grégoire’s, Charles, made it two Munsters on the start-line of this year’s Safari Rally Kenya – albeit in different classes (Rally1 and Rally2).

But how many siblings can you name that actually competed together as opposed to against each other?

Gilles and Hervé Panizzi are perhaps the most famous family duo, as the French brothers claimed seven WRC wins for Peugeot. But that was over 20 years ago.

Rally di San Remo 2002
Gilles (right) and Hervé Panizzi were a formidable duo on asphalt rallies in a Peugeot 206 WRC

Today, Norbert and Francesca Maior are unique.

Winning last year’s Junior ERC in emotional, last-gasp fashion, the brother and sister pairing were rewarded with a season in Junior WRC for 2024. Two podiums and a win to see out the season in Greece lifted them to second in the championship and proved they were more than up to the task.

But what is it actually like competing with your brother/sister?

How they joined forces
Norbert and Francesca’s rallying story begins with their father Robert, who has competed semi-regularly in their native Romania over the years.

But Norbert, two years Francesca’s senior, was the true inspiration for Francesca to start rallying. Not that she ever thought she’d end up sharing a car with him.

“He started karting when he was like six or seven years old and in that moment, I was just like a little kid going to his races and following him,” Francesca tells DirtFish.

“I also did some laps behind him with a little kart, just trying to learn because I loved what he was doing, and then when he started to do rally, he was 16 I was 14, and I was like ‘OK if he’s doing rally I have to do it as well to try at least’ and I did some laps in a test with him and with some other drivers and I said I love it!

Norbert and Francesca never originally had plans to compete together

“And then I started to work for it. In the beginning we didn’t really think about going together or something like that because he needed a co-driver that had more experience because he was young also, and I had no experience at that point.”

This was 2017, Norbert’s third season behind the wheel, while Francesca started her first rally alongside her dad before sitting with other drivers. But with just one season of co-driving under her belt, a decision was made.

“Norbert needed a co-driver,” Francesca says, “and I love to work for it, I love to grow.

“So we just started to be in the same car, and then we realized that we have a big passion, like both of us, so we can work for it. And he helped me a lot to grow up in co-driving, and then we just decided it’s working in a good way, so we can keep going.”

They’ve formed a formidable partnership ever since, winning countless class titles in Romania before clinching the Junior ERC title in 2023 which elevated them to the world championship this term.

Is it an advantage?

Anyone fortunate, or unfortunate, enough (delete as appropriate…) to have a sibling is well aware of how fickle a relationship that can be.

One minute you’re best friends, the next you’re stern enemies.

That adds an extra complexity to the already-important bond between driver and co-driver, so is it actually a benefit to Norbert and Francesca?

“Now it’s really good because we know each other so well and, I don’t know, we connect [with] each other in the car, we trust each other and it’s really nice,” Francesca explains.

“We have also moments, because everybody is asking us, yes, we have also moments that we fight and everything. But we move on fast. It’s like a one-minute, two-minute fight and then it’s like nothing happened and we keep going.

“Yeah, it’s a really nice relation that we have in the car and I think it’s really helpful that we are brother and sister because even if we fight, even if something is not working well, we are there for each other and we love it.”

The big advantage of Francesca is she wants to be in the rally car maybe more than me

Norbert agrees.

“I always said that it was the right decision [to compete together] because I’m not sure the other drivers how [they] are doing or the thinking, but for me the most important thing for a co-driver is that they want it more than me to be there,” he tells DirtFish.

“This is the most important: the passion. For example, if the schedule is complicated, we need to watch the video at two o’clock in the morning, three o’clock in the morning, we need to do it, so we need to have passion to do it. If you are tired or something like this, we are a team and we need to think in the same way.

“So the big advantage of Francesca is that point – that she wants to be in the rally car maybe more than me, or at least at the same level. Starting from here, from that point, everything can be improved, everything can be done well and we can grow together.”

That’s not to say it’s always been straight-forward.

“Of course, at the beginning it was not easy because you need experience, you need kilometers in the car to feel the pace, to feel the voice that you need to read the pacenotes and so on,” Norbert continues.

“So it was not easy at the beginning but now I think that Francesca is a top level co-driver and I’m really happy to have her in my car, because also in our country it’s difficult to have a co-driver and for me it’s not a good thing to change the co-drivers every time.

2024 was Norbert and Francesca’s seventh season together in the car

“So to have the same co-driver [for] many years, it’s a big advantage because we are starting a rally and everyone knows exactly what they need to do. Our jobs are really simple because on the rally Francesca is doing everything, and outside the car I am trying to manage everything, to get the sponsors, to have meetings, to organize tests and so on.

“So my job is to drive and to manage to get at the rallies. After we are on the rally location, Francesca is the boss and she knows every time what we need to do.”

Has rallying affected their brother-sister relationship?
Competing with a sibling is more common at the lower levels of rallying, but it’s far more pressurized doing so in the WRC at a professional level as part of Romania’s Napoca Rally Academy.

So how has Norbert and Francesca’s professional relationship affected their actual relationship?

“I think outside of the car we have just become more, let’s say, mature,” Francesca believes. “So we are more like grown [up] people.

“We don’t have any more those little fights that we had when we were little outside of the car. So now we are just… I don’t know, we can count on each other in any moment.”

Despite spending lots of time together, Norbert and Francesca are able to enjoy each other’s company

Norbert laughs: “But to be clear we are not staying together every time because we are living in different cities!”

Time apart from each other is important to keep their relationship healthy – just like with any other driver and co-driver pairing.

“This season like 90% of the time we were together because we would keep moving from one rally to another,” Francesca adds.

“So we spent really a lot of time together. Probably this winter we will want a little break from each other!”

The benefit of competing together though is the lack of any sibling rivalry. Any success for Norbert is also success for Francesca, and vice versa. That’s special for the entire Maior family, let alone the two inside the car.

For Norbert it often acts as an extra source of motivation.

“It’s special because, you know, not every time the things are looking great and we need to work a lot, working and working and working and maybe in one moment you are asking yourself why you are doing all these things and sometimes the answer is that Francesca is there, Francesca wanted to be there,” he says.

Norbert and Francesca motivate each other if one is losing hope

“My family, our family goes to the rally so it’s a tradition in our family, and sometimes when I feel that it is really difficult, maybe I have a boost of motivation because of Francesca and my family to be there.

“So it’s special and sometimes it motivates me to do all the things.”

“Yes,” Francesca concurs, “since I was little, I loved to be around Norbert and with my family and we were everywhere together. So I think this is really, really nice because sometimes siblings, when they grow up, they start to separate [from] each other to be, I don’t know, everyone in their own job or in their own private life.

“But for us it’s different because we are together like a lot of time and we really enjoy the time together even if we are in rally, even if we are just home and I don’t know. We enjoy to be together and to be in the same car, to achieve good results.

“And even when we don’t achieve results and we just have a, as Norbert said, a bad time, we’re there for each other and somehow we keep going. Sometimes we say ‘oh, this is so hard’ or one of us wants to… not give up, but you know that moment when you are just tired and you want a little break?

“The other one will say, ‘no, you cannot have any break. We need to keep going and to keep pushing because this is our dream’. So we like this.

“We are really happy and grateful to have these opportunities because we can be together a lot of time and we can have the same passion and we love this.”

What’s next?

Having flown high in Junior WRC this year, the plan is more of the same next year

Their biological bond is a unique aspect of the Norbert and Francesca Maior story, but it is not what defines them as a rally crew. Results are, and so far things are going swimmingly.

Considering they had not done any WRC events prior to this season, and had never competed in a four-wheel-drive car before, to finish second among such a competitive Junior WRC field – and win Acropolis Rally Greece – is a huge endorsement of their talents.

The Acropolis was a particularly special victory, as after a crash at the previous round in Finland their entry was far from guaranteed. Norbert told M-Sport Poland’s Maciej Woda to proceed preparing the car, but at that point he didn’t have the budget to compete.

It was a risk, but through tireless work they were able to make the start.

“It was the right decision,” Norbert smiles.

“That result was really special because after winning the Junior ERC for sure I didn’t thinking that we can do some nice result this year, because imagine: it was first time with four wheel drive car, first time in WRC so all new, so it’s really special and I really hope that somehow next year we will do something similar because it feels like we can.

“This is the main thing. Every rally it feels like we can. It feels like maybe if we are doing more test kilometers maybe we can be there in the top position, but it is the way we are doing.

Maior Norbert, Jürgenson Romet, Rensonnet Tom
Norbert and Francesca are busy working on making sure they visit a WRC podium more often

“So I don’t want to complain, it’s just the fight every day to be there and to prove that we can, because this is the most important goal for us, to prove that we can show also speed, we can show also great result, but step by step we are working every day to it.”

A Junior WRC 2025 is the plan again for the program, and it’s what they deserve.

“We need to say a big, big thank you to everyone that made this possible because as Norbert said it was really hard to be in Greece but it was really hard to be in every race,” Francesca concludes.

“Also last year to win the Junior [ERC] championship we needed a lot of support and we had it, so it’s a lot of people that did this, so it’s not only our achievement, it’s also the team, the partners, and every single people that ever just helped us with anything.

“A lot of people that worked for this, so we need to say a really big thank you, and hopefully next year we can do it even better.”