Team USA Tracker: January 11, 2023
75+ World Championships in 2023, US Men's Team Handball Worlds Preview, and USA wins United Cup
560 Days to Paris 2024 when Rugby 7s kick off two days before Opening Ceremonies
Never to Early to think about Paris here is the Day to Day Paris Schedule from OlympicTalk and where Team USA stands re Qualification
Here is just some of the top things
is tracking in January 2023🥇2023 - The Year of World Championships….75 PLUS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS with major implications for Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics
🥈 Men’s Team Handball: the first US team in action at World Championships plus the USWNT go to New Zealand as the World Cup is six months away
🥉Start of Tennis Season: Team USA are United Cup Champs and rolling deep into the first Grand Slam of the year Australian Open
ICYMI: Mikaela Shiffrin Chasing History
Follow Team USA 24/7 by following @TeamUSATracker on Twitter
📺What to Watch: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in 2023
FOR EVERY OLYMPICS FANS REJOICE THERE ARE 75 PLUS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN 2023!!!
Why so many? All 15 winter sports have World Championships in 2023 as the biannual World Championships of skiing, snowboarding , and the Nordic sports join the yearly world championships of the skating, hockey, and sliding sports.
29 of 32 Summer Olympics sports will have World Championships or quadrennial World Cups this year and most of these World Championships will huge potential consequences for Paris Qualification.
87% of 48 sport disciplines that make the Summer Olympics will have World Championships (note for tracking purposes - every discipline has a different qualification procedure) and 50% of these Summer Sports World Championships will have direct qualification for Paris 2024 based on placement at Worlds.
The 20 plus sports that factor Olympic qualification off rankings like skateboarding, fencing, golf, tennis, etc - will factor World Championships heavily into Paris Olympics rankings and qualification. It is also important to note as we get to one year out out from Paris - tennis grand slams (post French Open) and golf majors will all play a major factor in who is representing Team USA in Paris.
Re Paralympics- a lot of the Paralympics World Championships operate on a quadrennial format- so only about 65% of Paralympics sports have World Championships in 2023 as sports like Goalball held 2022 World Championships with qualification at stake.
Besides the World Championships - The Panam Games in late October and the Parapan Games in November could be the best chance and also last chance for many Team USA teams and athletes to qualify for Paris.
📺#HANDBALL NATION
It all begins with the Men’s Handball World Championships
Date: January 11 to January 29
Network: ESPN Plus and ESPN Networks
Team USA’s Schedule
US Men’s Handball vs Morocco - Friday Jan. 13 Noon ET
US Men’s Handball vs Croatia - Sunday Jan 15 230 PMET
US Men’s Handball vs Egypt - Tuesday Jan 17 Noon ET
Team USA Men's Handball Team heads into the World Championships having qualified for the World Championships for the first time in 22 years. Team USA’s Men’s Handball Team has never won a game at World Championships as they come into the first game with Morocco with a previous record of 0-25 in 6 previous appearances.
Team USA Men's Handball roster is young and filled with players who are dual nationals who learned to play handball outside the United States and some crossover athletes like Ty Reed a former walk-on WR at Alabama. Because of the youth the hope is that most of this team will play for Team USA at LA28 where Team USA gets the automatic bid in Handball for hosting the Olympics. Many in the USA Handball community hope this is the first of many World Championships appearances for this nucleus.
Team USA Men's Handball went 0-3 in a warm up tournament in Norway with losses to Brazil, Portugal, and Norway.
Names to know
Abou Fofana (age 26) Leading scorer during the tournament for Team USA during Gjensidige Cup
Others who will leading scoring: Ian Hüter (captain age 25), Alex Chan(age 29), Joey Stomberg (age 21), Sam Hodderson (age 25)
Jakob Rysgaard Christiansen : Youngest member of the squad (Age 19)
Gary Hines : Oldest member of squad (38 years old) click on link to check out his goal on Instagram as he is still jumping out of the gym
Pal Merkovszki, Rene Ingram, and Nicholas Robinson : 3 Goalkeepers who played in Gjensidige Cup and all of them are 24 and younger
Only four members of the final 18 men roster are 29 or older.
Full World Championships Preview from IHF.
Full Roster
Team USA only cut six players from training camp. Average age of the cuts were 21 oincluding 17 year old Maksim Tanner and 17 year old Nepomuk Grabner so they could all make the team in LA or subsequent Worlds.
📺#ONEFORTHETHUMB
One of the big quadrennial tournament in 2023 is the FIFA’s Women World Cup where #USWNT goes for a historic 3-peat and 5th overall title (#OnefortheThumb)
USWNT begins the 2023 World Cup season in New Zealand with two matches
USWNT Schedule
Jan. 17 vs New Zealand 10 PMET
Jan. 20 vs New Zealand 10 PMET
Network: HBOMAX/TNT
2023 USWNT might look a little bit different from the Tokyo team and the 2019 Women’s World Cup team.
Players not on the team in Tokyo now making a big impact include Sophia Smith comes off an historic season where Smith was the youngest player to lead USA in scoring since 1993 and youngest-ever NWSL MVP. On the backline NWSL Rookie of the Year and Defender of the Year Naomi Girma is now leading USWNT defense. Mallory Swanson (nee Pugh) is back logging big time minutes for USWNT after being left off Tokyo roster along with Alana Cook, Andi Sullivan, and Sofia Huerta who could all play a major factor for USWNT in 2023 after logging over 1,000 minutes for USWNT in 2022.
Looking at way too early roster predictions from The Athletic, SI, and ESPN the 2023 USWNT will likely be half be made of World Cup newcomers and half the rosters be veterans like Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Rose Lavelle, and Alyssa Naeher.
With six months to go until World Cup some injury question remain. Forwards Sophia Smith (foot) and Megan Rapinoe (ankle) will not make trip to New Zealand but both could be back for SheBelievesCup in February.
USWNT fans are monitoring nearly a dozen players who were on the 2019 World Cup roster and/or Tokyo roster who missed a large portion of 2022 season as they were rehabbing injuries or on maternity leave. Lynn Williams and Emily Sonnett return for the New Zealand matches but return dates are TBD for players like Christen Press (ACL) Catarina Macario (ACL), Sam Mewis (knee) Julie Ertz (maternity leave) Tobin Heath (knee), Tierna Davidson (ACL), Abby Dahlkemper (back) Kelley O’Hara (hip), and Casey Krueger (maternity leave). There have been some good reports on the ACL front as Press, Davidson, and Macario are progressing and should be returning to action soon but 2023 USWNT will look different from 2019 and 2021.
FULL ROSTER HERE FROM USWNT FOR NEW ZEALAND MATCHES
10 players of the 24 headed to New Zealand have World Cup and Olympics experience.
Just a reminder: 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is July 20 to August 20 on Fox and Fox Sports Networks
TEAM USA WINS UNITED CUP
Team USA won the inaugural United Cup in dominant fashion defeating Italy in the finals 4-0.
Team USA went 22-2 in the United Cup in matches vs Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, and Italy.
France Tiafoe and Madison Keys both went 5-0. Taylor Fritz went 4-1 beating 3 Top 15 players Zverev, Hurkacz, and Berrettini and only losing in 3 sets to Cam Norrie. The top ranked American Jessica Pegula went 4-1 including defeating #1 Iga Swiatek and Pegula went 4-0 in mixed doubles with Fritz and Tiafoe.
In the same week of the United Cup -US Tennis started the New Year with two deep runs in WTA/ATP 250 tournaments. Coco Gauff won WTA 250 in Auckland (3rd WTA Title,. Gauff’s first ever hard court title) and Sebastian Korda made the Adelaide final (Korda’s 3rd final in his last 4 tournaments) before losing to Novak Djokovic (Korda had a match point in 2nd set TB vs Djokovic).
Up Next is Australian Open from January 15 to January 29. Qualification started this week. All the action is on ESPN Family of Networks and ESPN Plus.
US will have at least 28 players in the main draw (13 men, 15 women) and 11 Americans (6 women, 5 men) playing in the last round of qualifiers.
3 US Men will be seeded: Fritz (#8), Tiafoe (#16), and Korda (#30)
5 US Women will be seeded: Pegula (#3), Gauff (#7), Keys (#10), defending runner-up Danielle Collins (#13), and Amanda Anisimova (#28)
2 US players are missing Australian Open because of injury:
Reilly Opelka is still recovering from hip surgery and Venus Williams withdrew after suffering an injury in Auckland where the 42 year old Williams won a match for the first time in nearly 2 years.
Former Australian Open champ Sofia Kenin entered main draw on a special ranking and is trying to regain 2020 form after struggling the last two seasons with injuries. Kenin is searching for first Grand Slam or WTA1000 win since Wimbledon 2021. Kenin has started off the season with a few wins and is currently in the Hobart WTA 250 QFs - one of 6 American in QFs of ATP/WTA 250s this week.
ICYMI: CHASING HISTORY: MIKAELA SHIFFRIN
Mikaela Shiffrin tied Lindsey Vonn’s record of 82 World Cup wins this week.
Shiffrin will likely have another 15 races (8 speed races and 7 tech races) to tie or break Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cups. I updated my previous post on Mikaela Shiffrin breaking down her World Cup history at future World Cup races this year.