What Really Drives Runners to Go Really, Really Long?
Runner’s World · 4 minResearch finds ultrarunners are sparked by a different kind of motivation.
Sports
Curated by our editorsStories to fuel your mind
The NFL’s Empathy Gap
The Ringer · 19 minA lack of basic communication skills is causing the smartest NFL teams to make the simplest, most avoidable mistakes.
The All-Time Leading Scorer In Women’s College Basketball Is Finally Getting Her Due
FiveThirtyEight · 6 minPearl Moore didn’t need a 3-point line to dominate.
A Super-Inside Look at the Life of Venus Williams, aka the Icon We All Need Right Now
Cosmopolitan · 10 minTen days before our interview, Venus Williams made it clear how she handles the press: “I know every single person asking me a question can’t play as well as I can and never will.” Sitting in a media room at the French Open, eyes shadowed by a baseball cap, she scanned the room.
The Climbers Who Survived a Week Stuck on Mount Rainier
Outside · 6 minAfter a climbing partner became ill, high winds stranded Yev Krasnitskiy and his team on the upper reaches of Mount Rainier for five days with no way to go but up.
Popular with Pocket readersStories from across the web
21 Questions Ahead of the 2021 NFL Season
The Ringer · 18 minCan the Buccaneers have another healthy season? Is Urban Meyer really cut out for this? And just how washed is Ben Roethlisberger? Answering those questions and more ahead of the NFL season.
'All your baseball cards came to life': The night, 50 years ago, when 22 Hall of Famers played in an All-Star Game for the ages
ESPN · 11 minThe greatest center fielder ever was there that magical and historic night at Tiger Stadium 50 years ago for the All-Star Game in Detroit. There was also the all-time leader in RBIs and total bases, the "Hit King" and "Mr. October.
Emma Raducanu: British 18-year-old makes tennis history with US Open final win
The Guardian · 5 minThere are so many basic milestones that Emma Raducanu has not yet recorded in a professional tennis career that only began in full three months ago.
A Few Tennis Pros Make a Fortune. Most Barely Scrape By.
The New York Times · 31 minOn Halloween night 2019, the Canadian tennis player Vasek Pospisil faced Chris O’Connell, an Australian, in a third-round match at the Charlottesville Men’s Pro Challenger in Virginia. The event was part of the A.T.P. Challenger Tour, a rung below the main circuit in men’s tennis.
A Requiem for Big 12 Football
The Ringer · 11 minTake it from someone who was there at the beginning: Big 12 members saw the conference not as an identity but as a host organism for their ambitions In the fall of 1996, I enrolled at the University of Texas for two reasons. The first was a Longhorns backfield that featured Ricky Williams.
The Tokyo Olympics are turning into NBC’s worst nightmare
Los Angeles Times · 7 minNo one said these Olympics would be easy. Not even watching them.
The incredible story of the MLB pitcher who survived a lightning strike to finish a game
ESPN · 15 minON AUG. 24, 1919, Ray Caldwell puts on a Cleveland uniform for the first time. The weather is brutally hot but clear -- for now -- and none of the 20,000 or so fans at League Park has any idea that they're about to see something that defies belief.
Serena Williams and Her Fellow Tennis Greats Are Limping Toward the Exits
The New York Times · 6 minGraceful final chapters in tennis can be difficult to achieve, as Serena Williams and Roger Federer are learning firsthand. Serena Williams’s announcement of her withdrawal from the U.S. Open included 78 words and a heart emoji.
The World’s Greatest Soccer Player Moves On
The New Yorker · 7 minThe story of why the world’s greatest soccer player has no team right now is ultimately not about sports at all. It’s about money. To understand this unpleasant affair, it’s useful perhaps, and certainly sobering, to go back just a few years, to October, 2018, when F.C.
MMQB: Urban Meyer on Similarities Between College and Pro Football as He Starts a New Chapter
Sports Illustrated · 49 minThe new Jaguars coach says the two levels have never had more in common and expands on why he made the jump now. Plus, how the Buccaneers are trying to get back, the Cowboys are still high on Mike McCarthy, remembering Floyd Reese and much more.
Inside Shohei Ohtani’s Superhero Origin Story
The Ringer · 24 minOhtani is in the midst of a hyperbole-proof season during which he’s dominated on the mound and at the plate. But that may never have happened had one enterprising Japanese team not made a few very bold decisions.
The Olympics Rely On, but Don’t Support, Black Girl Magic
The New York Times · 6 minNaomi Osaka, Simone Biles and Gwen Berry are among the Black women athletes who will be counted on to provide standout performances in Tokyo even as they fight to be respected. For better or worse, the Tokyo Olympics are finally here.
FMIA: Baltimore Is Built To Last, But Reality Hits Hard After Injury; Camp Snapshots After One Month On Road
NBC Sports · 51 minOWINGS MILLS, Md. — When you report at NFL training camps, interviewing people is often a balancing act, with 80 or so players and all the coaches coming off the field at nearly the same time.
Ten Takeaways From a Very Weird Summer Olympics
New York Magazine · 7 minThe Tokyo Olympics were unlike any other, held in the middle of a pandemic, with no fans, with all participants largely isolated from the world they came to represent. Many thought the Games would never get started, but now, somehow, they’ve been successfully completed.
Messi and Ronaldo Have New Teams, but Soccer’s Same Problems Remain
The Ringer · 8 minLionel Messi’s move to Paris Saint-Germain and Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Manchester United may have altered the landscape of European soccer, but if this summer’s transfer window has taught us anything, it’s that the true power in the sport is the same as it was last year.
Simone Biles Rejects a Long Tradition of Stoicism in Sports
The New York Times · 6 minBiles was widely embraced as the latest elite athlete who had the courage to acknowledge her vulnerability.
The Tokyo Olympics’ Indelible Moments of Loss and Solidarity
The New Yorker · 11 minIt seems fitting that the first defining moment of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics—held not in 2020 but in 2021, in a bubble meant to separate it from Tokyo—was also its most disconcerting: Simone Biles, high in the air, looking lost.
Possession Is The Puzzle Of Soccer Analytics. These Models Are Trying To Solve It.
FiveThirtyEight · 6 minIn 2011, a software developer named Sarah Rudd got fed up with conventional soccer stats. It was easy to count how many passes a player attempted and completed, but not all passes are equal.
The Ronaldo phenomenon: how one player became a tyranny of numbers
The Guardian · 6 minIn the aftermath of Cristiano Ronaldo’s shock return to Manchester United last week, there was a good deal of feverish speculation about whether he would reclaim the famous No 7 shirt once worn by United legends such as George Best, Bryan Robson and Eric Cantona, and which now forms a central part
Simone Biles Says She Wasn’t in Right Place Mentally During Olympic Final
The New York Times · 17 minTOKYO — In midair, soaring over a vault, Simone Biles realized she had lost her way. She came into the Olympics as the United States’ star, expected to bring home gold medals and to fulfill the obligations of a global celebrity. The weight of her past success loomed over her.