Team USA Tracker
164 Days Until Beijing and 1073 Days Until Paris it is Tuesday August 24, 2021
WHAT IS THE TRACKER WATCHING TODAY:
Hilary Knight
Two of the biggest names in USA Women’s Hockey History are Hilary Knight & Cammi Granato
On Sunday Night, Knight tied Granato with 44 career goals in IIHF Women’s World Hockey Championships.
The 32 year old Hilary Knight will likely have 5 more games left in 2021 World Championships and to move into a solo lead over Granato (captain of the 1998 Gold Medal Team) and also she needs 3 points to tie Granato’s points record of 78 starting today vs Russia at 2PMET on NHL Network.
Digging into historical statistics note Granato put up her numbers in less World Championship games but Knight’s number has come against stiffer competition since 2011 World Championships the IIHF changed format to put all Top 4 (this year Top 5) women’s hockey teams in one group and therefore avoiding Team USA or Canada beating the worst team at the World Championships in the tournament 14 to 0.
Backup TV Viewing Today: 7 PMET Frances Tiafoe will play Andy Murray in front of a packed crowd in Winston Salem, NC plus US Open Tennis Qualification begins today at 11 AMET on ESPN Plus (more on that down below)
Keep up with Team USA’s latest schedule via Team USA Tracker Today
GOLDEN Performances this Weekend: There were a lot but I’m picking the Top 3
3) Athing Mu
Athing Mu declared to Lewis Johnson after her final event of the 2021 Prefontaine Classic 800M that she was going on vacation to the beach and the 19 year old gold medalist deserves it. .
On Saturday at the Prefontaine Classic Athing Mu was so dominant...she outran the cameras. She set a new American record and ran faster than she did when she won Gold in Tokyo.
Athing Mu’s Accomplishments on the Track in 2021
Tokyo Gold Medalist in 800M and anchored the Dream Team 4x400 Gold Medal winning Team from Team USA
NCAA Champ in 4x400M and 400M (her 49.57 at NCAA Championships would have placed her 4th at the Tokyo Olympics in 400M)
In one season at Texas A&M (Athing Mu University) she set 6 collegiate records
Hopefully World Athletics can change the 400M and 800M schedule around in Paris so she can attempt a historic double.
2) Tony Finau
@TeamUSATracker tweet on Saturday compared Tony Finau’s string of 39 Top 10 Finishes in 5 years (without a win) to Jane Nichols in 27 Dresses. Three days later with a Monday finish, The Northern Trust proved to be Tony’s Finau Kevin Doyle (yeah I went with the Rom-Com theme like Ted Lasso).
Tony Finau won a big tournament and put himself on an inside track to $15M payout for winning FedEx playoffs.
According to Justin Ray: 126 different players won at least one PGA Tour event between Tony Finau victories and more interesting and another amazing stat from Ray; Tony Finau is the 14th consecutive winner on the PGA Tour who trailed entering the final round.
Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship remains the last 54-hole leader/co-leader to win a PGA Tour event. Shows you how impressive Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda were in holding the 54 hole lead for the Gold Medals in Tokyo.
Finau jumped to #1 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs with the win and two more tourneys to play and moved up to #6 in the Ryder Cup standings and #9 in World Rankings
FedEx Cup Playoffs now down to 70 players and no more cuts in the next two tourneys (field will go from 70 to 30 after BMW Championships)
1) April Ross
#ATeam (April Ross/Alix Klineman) won the most prestigious AVP Beach Tournament Manhattan Beach Open, only dropping one set (sounds familiar) They beat up & comers #TKNTandem Kloth/Nuss (winner of Atlanta AVP Tourney) and #TeamSlaes Claes/Sponcil in straight sets before beating Emily Day/Betsi Flint in the Championships also in straight sets.
They both mentioned how exhausted they were from Tokyo and had been doing a lot of media across the country post their Gold medals but showed up for packed houses on Manhattan Beach and on the Pier. April & Alix’s names will be added to the Manhattan Beach Pier again (One of the coolest traditions in any sports) and April Ross has now won 3 Olympic Medals (Gold, Silver, Bronze) with 3 Different Partners and 4 Manhattan Beach Open Titles with 3 Different Partners.
April Ross also picked up her 73 Beach Volleyball Tournament Win (FIVB and AVP) becoming 3rd all time behind Kerri Walsh Jennings (135) and Misti May-Treanor (112) who had over 100 together while April Ross has racked up her 73 Beach Volleyball Tournament wins with 6 different partners.
#Ateam (April and Alix) are on top of the Beach Volleyball world right now and they are serious contender for Paris 2024 repeat and I would not rule out April Ross reaching 100 tourney wins however #ATeam biggest obstacle is a lack of tournaments with the pandemic.
IN DEPTH BREAKDOWN: CROWD SIZE & TRACK AND FIELD PREVIEW
Noah Lyles won the 200M at the PreFontaine Classic tweeted this about fans in the stands
I think Noah Lyles is 100% right about the lack of crowds in Tokyo and possibly hurting US Athletes.
As a fan: the lack of crowds was jarring to Team USA athletes who just had huge crowds for Trials or Send-off Tours ( Swimming, Track & Field, Gymnastics, US Women’s Soccer ) to no crowds in Tokyo. Daniel Wann, a psychology professor at Murray State (studies sports psychology and fan behavior) has been quoted describing a phenomenon grounded and a psychological concept called social facilitation, referring to a change in a person’s performance that occurs when others are around compared to when a person is alone. Wann points out that Top-of-the-line athletes tend to perform better with a crowd than when alone, while lesser competitors falter. “If there's a lack of an audience, theoretically, you should see across-the-board maybe not quite as high a level of performance as you would have before,” Wann says.
See the full article here which was published during the Tokyo games https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-olympics-without-fans-is-harming-athletes-performance1/
Now if the Prefontaine Classic and US Trials were a precursor of the fast track at Hayward Field we could see exciting things in the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in front of a home US crowd from Fred Kerley, Noah Lyles, Michael Norman, Rai Benjamin, 400M Hurdles Women’s Sweep, Gabby Thomas, Sha’Carri Richardson, Courtney Frerichs just to name a few.
Of note @TeamUSATracker is very interested in the next step (pun intended) in Erriyon Knighton’s career. He broke Usain Bolt’s age record and finished 4th at the Olympics at 17. He will be competing at Paris 2024 (a year younger than Bolt was in Beijing 2008). So it should be a fun 3 years for Americans in Track & Field with 2 World Championships (Eugene 2022, Budapest 2023) and Paris 2024.
THIS WEEK COMING UP : IN DEPTH TRACKING US OPEN TENNIS
Every year @TeamUSATracker tracks in depth Americans in the final Grand Slam of the Tennis Year
This year there are a lot of Americans to Track and American Tennis keeps on continue to rise.
In terms of the Team USA Today Tracker Today I have made seperate columns to track the US Open like @TeamUSATracker did for Swim Trials & Track & Field Trials. 40 Americans are in Action in Qualification beginning today at 11AMET (on ESPN Plus where all the courts will be streaming so you can see every match!!!) plus there are 44 Americans with direct entry to the US Open Main Draw (25 Women, 19 Men) as @TeamUSATracker noted yesterday there will be 1 in 5 Women in the Main Draw are American Women and that could go up if more US women qualify for US Open.
Here are the 23 women in the Women's Qualification Draw
Here are the 17 men in the Men’s Qualification Draw
In terms of the Qualification; only 2 Americans are seeded #29 Maxime Cressy and #25 Kristie Ahn who were the 2 highest ranked players to miss out on a Wildcard. Cressy missed out on a Wildcard because USTA had to give Wildcards to Brandon Nakashima and Jenson Brooksby (both have been scorching hot this summer with their play to rise up into Top 100) when the rankings were entered for the US Open on July 9 for direct entry list they were both ranked below #130.
Ahn didn’t get a direct entry WC over Coco Vandeweghe (2017 US Open Semi-Finalist returning from injury) or 4 up & coming Americans under the age of 20 (Caty McNally was only one ranked ahead of Ahn). Ahn made the 2019 Rof16 at US Open in Ahn’s in her second ever US Open appearance after going 11 years between appearances in the US Open Main Draw (2008 she made it as a 16 year old). The run was magical as Ahn was born in Flushing, Queens and grew up in Englewood Cliffs, NJ so besides being hometown girl - her parents told her numerous times to start looking for another job.
See more here on Ahn’s story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/sports/tennis/us-open-kristie-ahn.html
One note about this article: the 2019 US Open R4 appearance for Ahn still makes up about 23% of her overall winning as a tennis player.
THEY NEED TO CHANGE THAT: @TEAMUSATRACKER RANT OF THE WEEKEND
Speaking of Tennis @TEAMUSATRACKER is fired up about the treatment of Noah Rubin in Winston Salem
To placate a sold out crowd for Andy Murray and Nick Krygios when Nick Krygios withdrew because of injury before the match (to keep his money as you can see below from the ATP rulebook ) The Winston Salem Open went to a 3 or 4 lucky losers to get someone to play Andy Murry and the only one who said yes was former Wake Forest tennis Noah Rubin.
Noah Rubin who in his own words just played for 2.5 hours in the heat in a qualifying match in which he lost a match point in the 2nd set and only had a 30 minute rest to play Andy Murray. @TeamUSATracker rooted for a huge upset by Rubin but Rubin got crushed by Andy Murray as Rubin cramped up throughout the match. Since Kyrgios kept his money (the rule is there so Kyrgios wouldn't retire like after a game or two in the match) and two of the Lucky Losers who ducked Murray got to enter the draw the next day with a day rest when two more participants WD on site it just seems like the rules need to change.
Here are some of Rubin’s tweets about it
Hopefully Winston Salem Open @WSOpen will make it right and give Noah Rubin a lifetime Widlcard to the Winston Salem Open (Winston Salem Open gave 0 Wildcards to Americans reserving it for top players who signed up late) and possibly Winston Salem or a sponsor should actually pay Rubin a 1st round payout ($3,950 instead of $1,840 ) or $96,505 (the winner cut this week) since Rubin was asked to save the tourney in front of the sellout crowd. The full prize money would be 12% of Rubin’s career earnings and it is not even 1% of Murray career earnings. Rubin has not won a match since before the pandemic and came back this summer from injury but why the other Lucky Losers did not want to play is the Winston Salem Open should have moved the match to the next night to give the Lucky Loser a chance. Obviously Tennis needs to figure out a better way to deal with retirements, Medical Timeouts, off the court coaching in non Grand Slam events that always upset tennis fans
COUNTDOWN
4 Days until the Start of College Football Season
6 DAYS UNTIL US OPEN TENNIS ROUND 1
26 Days Until Archery World Championships in Yankton, SD
93 Days Until Table Tennis World Championships in Houston, TX
164 Days Until Beijing
325 Days Until Track and Field World Championships in Eugene, OR
1073 Days Until Paris
@TeamUSATracker Documents - if you have updates on Team USA schedules feel free to email 247teamusa@gmail.com
Beijing 2022
Paris 2024
PARTING SHOTS
The Mountain Biking World Championships begins Wednesday. Mountain Biking at the Olympics is just a Cross Country Course. USA Athletes will be competing in Cross Country but also Short Track, Downhill and E-MTB races this week and they also will stage a Cross Country Team Relay.
Matt Hamilton & Becca Hamilton qualified for the Mixed Doubles Curling Olympic Qualifiers in October. USA Mixed Doubles Curling Team will need to win Olympic Qualifier and then qualify for the Olympics in a last chance qualifying spot since the US Mixed Doubling Team missed out by one spot at 2021 MX Doubles Curling World Championships.
@TeamUSATracker has seen America’s Rugby’s Future and IT IS BRIGHT!!! After watching RugbyTown7s this weekend besides the undefeated play from the U-23 squad (Lucas Lacamp was scoring tries at will) on Saturday and Sunday, other Americans showcased big on other teams.
Team USA Handball hosting the NORECA Handball Championships (for the first time ever) to qualify for World Championships lost their first two games to Puerto Rico and Greenland and will not qualify for World Championships in 2021. The United States will be get an automatic Olympic berth to the 2028 LA Games but don’t worry about the losses by 2021 by 2028 maybe Puerto Rico will be a state and the United States would have bought Greenland. In the meantime growth continues in USA Handball and the NCAA investing in Handball as a sport would help Team USA Handball considerably.
Greenland was the 2nd non recognized IOC country (They compete at Olympics as Denmark) who had some big success vs Team USA this past week. Tahiti (which competes as part of France at Olympics and doesn’t have its own Olympic Committee) made the Beach Soccer QFs after winning their pool. I do think the success of Beach Soccer, Beach Volleyball, Beach Handball is that a smaller group of athletes in a main sport (a pickup version of the sport) could level the playing field like 3x3 Basketball. You can see that with Lacrosse (6 on 6) and Flag Football (5 on 5) asking for inclusion for LA 2028.
Paralympics Opening Ceremony coverage is live at NBC Sports at 7AMET. NBC is really turning NBCSN into the Live Paralympics channel so if you want live coverage of Paralympics that is the best bet
Any questions or comments email me at 247teamusa@gmail.com