| | | | | | | Presented By Curex | | | | Axios Sports | | By Kendall Baker ·Jun 23, 2021 | | 👋 Good morning! Happy Hump Day. ✍️ Submit your story: We want to hear your "why we love sports" stories! If you have a fondest sports memory, or an example of sports having a positive impact on your life, please share it with us by replying to this email. Today's word count: 1,623 words (6½ minutes). Let's sports... | | | | | | 1 big thing: 🇯🇵 One month from Tokyo |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | The Tokyo Olympics are set to begin a month from today, with the opening ceremony scheduled for July 23. The state of play: Support for the Games seems to be growing among the Japanese public, but there's persistent opposition from those who are concerned about the health risks. - 😷 COVID-19 cases: Japan is seeing relatively low case counts after a surge last month. So far, about one in every 161 people in Japan has tested positive (in the U.S. that number is about one in 10).
- 💉 Vaccinations: Just 7% of Japan's residents are fully vaccinated and roughly 18% have received at least one shot, putting Japan's vaccination rates among the lowest of its peers.
A replica of a room in the Olympic Village. Photo: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images The event: While the Games may still end up wowing TV audiences, the on-the-ground experience is going to be quiet, isolated and strange. - 💉 Testing: Athletes will be tested daily in the Olympic Village, after being tested at least twice before leaving home, and once upon arrival.
- 🏡 Living: Normally a place for socializing and celebrating, this year's Olympic Village is a sanitized bubble full of testing centers. The "city within a city" has 21 residential towers with 3,600 rooms. Take a tour.
- 🏟 Fans: Local fans are permitted (for now), but venues are limited to 50% capacity (up to 10,000 fans). Attendees must wear masks, can't cheer or buy alcohol, and must go straight home afterward.
- 🎥 Media: NBCUniversal will broadcast 7,000 hours of programming surrounding the Games. That includes 17 consecutive nights in primetime with host Mike Tirico.
Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images 🇺🇸 Meet Team USA: Welcome to the post-Phelps era. There are familiar names (like Ledecky and Biles), but plenty of new ones too (like Dressel and Richardson). - 👟 Track & Field: Sha'Carri Richardson (above) is vying to become the first American woman to win the 100 meters since Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1996. In April, she ran the sixth-fastest women's 100 ever.
- 💧 Swimming: The 50-member swim team features 11 teenagers, the most since 1996. Three Americans qualified in three or more individual events: Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky and Michael Andrew.
- ⚽️ Soccer: The women's roster (18 players, four alternates) will be revealed today. The men failed to qualify.
- 🏀 Men's basketball: The 12-man roster is nearly finalized. Here are the 11 players who've committed: Durant, Harden, Lillard, Booker, Tatum, Beal, Middleton, Adebayo, Green, Holiday, and Love.
- 🏀 Women's basketball: WNBA legends Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Sylvia Fowles (combined 11 gold medals) headline the 12-woman roster that features six newcomers.
- 🥇 Gymnastics: The U.S. Olympic trials begin tomorrow in St. Louis. Simone Biles is the star — who will be joining her?
- ⛳️ Golf: Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau will represent the men. The women's team will be finalized next week.
- 🛹 Skateboarding: The first U.S. Olympic skateboarding team has 12 members, and they'll be competing in street and park disciplines. The most famous name is Nyjah Huston (4.6 million IG followers).
Go deeper: |     | | | | | | 2. 🇯🇵 In photos: On the ground in Tokyo | | Photo: Jinhee Lee/NurPhoto via Getty Images The $15.4 billion National Stadium will serve as the main venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, while also hosting track & field events. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images The countdown clock shows 30 days until the opening ceremony. Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images The Japanese government ended the state of emergency in most prefectures this weekend as cases continue to fall, though some restrictions remain in Tokyo and elsewhere. Photo: Berouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images Self-driving vehicles will be used to shuttle athletes from the Olympic village to event venues and other pre-set routes. | | | | | | | | 3. 🏀 Dunk of the night: Ayton calls game |  | | | Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images | | | | Deandre Ayton flushed an alley-oop inbound pass from Jae Crowder with 0.7 seconds left, lifting the Suns to a 104-103 win over the Clippers to take a 2-0 series lead. - Paul George (26 pts) led a late Clippers rally but missed two free throws with 8.2 seconds left, giving the Suns a chance to win.
- The Suns were led by Ayton (22 pts, 14 reb) and Cameron Payne, who scored a career-high 29 points while filling in for Chris Paul.
- The Clippers argued for goaltending on Ayton's flush, but fun fact: There's no goaltending on an inbound pass.
By the numbers: Ayton is having a great playoffs, with five 20-point, 10-rebounds games. He's also the first player in the shot-clock era to make over 70% of his shots in any 12-game postseason span (min. 100 attempts). More NBA: - Draft lottery: The Pistons won the lottery, followed by the Rockets, Cavaliers and Raptors. The rest of the top 10: Magic, Thunder, Warriors, Magic (again), Kings, Pelicans. Full draft order.
- Rule changes: The NBA is expected to implement new rules to limit attempts to draw fouls on non-basketball moves (see: James Harden and Trae Young), per The Athletic (subscription).
📆 Tonight: Hawks at Bucks, 8:30pm ET (Game 1) - Poll results: 71% of Axios readers think the Bucks will win the series, according to yesterday's poll. 29% are riding with the Hawks.
| | | | | | | | A message from Curex | | How Curex allergy is expanding access to at-home immunotherapy | | |  | | | | Allergy immunotherapy is the only clinically proven treatment to reduce your allergies by fixing the source, not just the symptoms. The background: This treatment has been used and proven in Europe for decades and Curex is the first to bring at-home immunotherapy to the U.S. Learn more. | | | | | | 4. 🏒 The Carey Price experience |  | | | Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images | | | | The Canadiens scored four goals on Tuesday night, which is twice as many as they need to guarantee victory these days, thanks to the dominant play of goalie Carey Price. Wild stats: The Habs are 9-0 this postseason when they score two or more goals (!), and they haven't allowed a power-play goal in 12 straight games, an NHL single-postseason record (29-for-29 on the penalty kill). Looking ahead: The Canadiens are now one win away from their record 35th Stanley Cup Final appearance — and their first in 28 years. 📆 Tonight: Lightning at Islanders, 8pm (TB leads 3-2) | | | | | | | | 5. ⚾️ "Ball market": BLA featured on HBO | | Photo courtesy of HBO "Real Sports" Big League Advance, the company that invests in baseball prospects in exchange for a cut of their future MLB earnings, was featured on Tuesday night's episode of HBO's "Real Sports." The big picture: BLA made headlines in February when it was revealed that Fernando Tatís Jr., fresh off signing a $340 million contract, owed the company upwards of $30 million. - Some view BLA as predatory and exploitative, while others see it as a useful solution for underpaid minor leaguers to cash in on their future value.
- As of February, BLA had invested roughly $120 million in 344 prospects, founder Michael Schwimer told me.
What they're saying: On Tuesday's episode, HBO's Soledad O'Brien interviewed White Sox slugger Yermin Mercedes, a BLA client. - O'Brien: "They gave you $165,000. You have to pay them if you make $10 million ... one and a half million dollars."
- Mercedes: "I give to them, yeah. You know why?"
- O'Brien: "Why?"
- Mercedes: "Because those people trusted me. They believe in me, you know? Nobody believed in me at that point. And they believed in me."
The last word: "I tell the players ... we're investing in you because we think we're gonna make money," Schwimer told O'Brien. "And if we do make money, it's gonna be a heck of a lot more than what we paid you." Go deeper: Reimagining how baseball prospects get paid (Axios) | | | | | | | | 6. ⚽️ Euro 2020: Group stage concludes today |  Data: UEFA; Chart: Michelle McGhee/Axios The 2020 Euro group stage concludes today, with Group E (12pm ET) and Group F (3pm) playing their third and final matches. - Group E: Sweden (4 pts) vs. Poland (1 pt); Slovakia (3 pts) vs. Spain (2 pts)
- Group F: Portugal (3 pts) vs. France (4 pts); Germany (3 pts) vs. Hungary (1 pt)
The intrigue: Soccer fans waited 18 months for Group F (aka "The Group of Death") to come to life, and the formidable trio of France, Germany and Portugal hasn't disappointed. Even Hungary is still alive. Go deeper: | | | | | | | | 7. ⚡️ Lightning round |  | | | Photo: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images | | | | ⚾️ Wander's debut: Can't-miss Rays prospect Wander Franco, the first player born in 2001 to debut in the majors, homered and drove in three runs in his first game. 🇨🇦 Canada sports betting: Canada has passed a bill that permits each province to approve single-game sports wagering. Currently, Canadians can only legally bet through parlays (multiple bets linked together). ⚾️ College World Series: Arizona and Tennessee have been eliminated, leaving NC State (2-0), Mississippi State (2-0), Texas (1-1), Stanford (1-1), Vanderbilt (1-1) and Virginia (1-1) as the final six. Go deeper. | | | | | | | | 8. 📆 June 23, 1972: Title IX signed into law |  | | | Rep. Patsy Mink in 1971. Photo: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images | | | | 49 years ago today, President Nixon signed Title IX into law, paving the way for a burgeoning landscape of women's sports. The law: Rep. Patsy Mink (above), the first woman of color elected to Congress, co-authored Title IX, which is now called the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in her honor. "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." — Title IX How it works: Any school that receives federal money must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics. - "Fair and equal treatment" does not mean men's and women's sports receive the same amount of money; proportionally, though, they must be treated equally.
- In other words, if men make up 60% of athletes at a given institution, they should receive no more than 60% of the scholarship money.
The impact: Before Title IX, just 300,000 girls nationwide participated in high school sports each year and 15% of NCAA student-athletes were women. Today, those numbers are 3.5 million and 44%, respectively. Go deeper: Meet education trailblazer Patsy Mink (The 74) | | | | | | | | 9. 🏀 NBA draft trivia |  | | | Photo: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images | | | | Three of the top five picks in the 2018 NBA draft have shined this postseason: No. 1 Deandre Ayton, No. 3 Luka Dončić and No. 5 Trae Young. - Question: Who were the other top-five picks in 2018?
- Hint: ACC and Big Ten.
Answer at the bottom. | | | | | | | | 10. 🎥 Tuesday's top plays | | Source: Giphy - 🏀 Ayton oop #1
- 🎾 Spicy tweener
- ⚽️ Luka's brilliant goal
- 🏀 Ayton oop #2
- ⚾️ Derek Jeter, is that you?
Watch all 5. | | | | | | | | A message from Curex | | This revolutionary allergy treatment can help you get back in the game | | |  | | | | Allergies can impact your everyday life, making it hard to do the things you love like outdoor sports. Curex can help. Here's how: The company is expanding access to at-home immunotherapy, a clinically proven treatment that provides long-term relief to your allergies. Learn more | | | | Talk tomorrow, Kendall "Suns in 4?" Baker Trivia answer: Marvin Bagley III (No. 2), Jaren Jackson Jr. (No. 4) 🙏 Thanks for reading. Don't forget to refer your friends (axios.com/referral) and follow me on Twitter: @thekendallbaker. |  | | The tool and templates you need for more engaging team updates. | | | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here.
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