Count to 14. One Mississippi, two ... that's how much Katie Ledecky won by

Count to 14. One Mississippi, two ... that's how much Katie Ledecky won by

BUDAPEST — Some cars go from zero to 60 really fast. Not a 1975 AMC Pacer. It requires a touch over 14 seconds.

Got the picture in your mind of that wide-as-it-as-long, weirdo-bubble-glass, frog-like thing belching, lumbering, wheezing toward 60? Take out your cellphone, go to the stopwatch function, click start and watch it go tick, tick, tick. And keep on ticking. One Mississippi, two …

Fourteen-plus is a lot of seconds. Usain Bolt is already in the midst of a second 100-meter dash.

In the women’s 1500 freestyle at these 2022 FINA world championships, 14-plus is how much time winner Katie Ledecky put between her and runner-up Katie Grimes, a 16-year-old from Las Vegas.

Hey, Tilly — Katie won … again!

Hey, Tilly — Katie won … again!

BUDAPEST — If you need to read about golfers yelling at each other or journalists yelling at golfers or something like that, please click elsewhere.

Katie Ledecky was back racing Saturday night, which means we can all feel good about, well, everything. Especially about the notion of endless possibilities. And what it means to genuinely be an inspiration seemingly everywhere in our fractious and chaotic world, and especially to women and girls — some of whom make posters for you and still others who make posters and then grow up to, you know, race you.

Sarah Hirshland is USOPC chief executive. A guessing game: for how long?

Sarah Hirshland is USOPC chief executive. A guessing game: for how long?

Senior leadership at the International Olympic Committee neither likes nor respects Sarah Hirshland, the chief executive of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

She has little support among some number of key executives who head the 50 national governing bodies here in the United States.

She makes a big show of supporting U.S. Olympic athletes but late last week fired, and unceremoniously, Rick Adams, the one person at the USOPC who knew the most about getting athletes to perform their best at the Olympic Games, Winter and Summer.

A popular behind-the-scenes guessing game: how much longer will Hirshland remain chief executive?

How much longer should she?

As the tradition says: may Alex Gilady's memory be a blessing

As the tradition says: may Alex Gilady's memory be a blessing

I was in touch by text message late last week with Alex Gilady. And now he’s gone. He died Wednesday, in London, of cancer. As is the way in Jewish tradition, his funeral was scheduled as soon as could be, at noon Friday, back in Israel, in Ramat HaSharon, near Tel Aviv.

Alex lived life. When our time comes, how many of us can say this? Alex loved hanging out in London (especially at Wimbledon): he thoroughly enjoyed the late summer along Spain’s Costa Brava; he inevitably managed to find something about every place he was, wherever it was. To be with him was to understand that life is indisputably, unequivocally for living. Dressed impeccably? Inevitably. A good bottle of red? Sure. A story, a discussion, maybe even a point or three to contest? Why not?

With him closes a chapter of history. His passing marks an occasion of deep, profound sadness.

For me, the sadness is particularly personal.

In Belgrade, a rivalry in the men's sprint, and let's get it on

BELGRADE, Serbia — There are four big track and field championships this year: world indoors, world outdoors, Commonwealth Games, Europeans. For a sizeable number of top athletes, these world indoors are, for lack of a better description, the baby of the four, the junior rider.

In any year, but particularly this one, it would be rare to see the kind of showdown that took place Saturday night in the marquee event of these world indoors, the men’s 60 meters. In Lane 5, the Tokyo Olympic champion in the 100 meters, Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs. Was his run last summer a fluke? In Lane 3, American Christian Coleman, the 2019 100 world champion, the 2018 60-meter winner, the world record-holder at this distance at 6.34 seconds. He could not challenge Jacobs in Tokyo. He was sitting out, grounded by a whereabouts violation.

Rarer still is the race that lives up to the hype.

This one did.

A Russian dilemma: is an athlete ban morally 'right'? Is it lawful?

A Russian dilemma: is an athlete ban morally 'right'? Is it lawful?

The International Olympic Committee this week moved to isolate Russia, including Russian athletes, from international sport.

The reason for this move is clear. It’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24. So there is no mistake, no equivocating about language — it’s, from the words of the IOC’s news release itself, the “current war in Ukraine.” It’s the war. The war puts the Olympic movement, the release said, in a “dilemma.” The statement uses the word “dilemma” four times.

To be clear, what Russia has done in launching this war is horrific and reprehensible. The IOC also took the step of stripping the Russian president, Vladimir Putin — and two others, including the head of the Sochi 2014 Games, Dmitry Chernyshenko — of the highest Olympic prize, the Olympic Order. That’s entirely appropriate.

Is what the IOC did in moving Monday to ban Russian athletes an act of moral leadership? The right thing to do? In the west, overwhelmingly, the answer is easy. Yes.

Imagine, just imagine, being 46 feet up there above the bottom of the halfpipe

Imagine, just imagine, being 46 feet up there above the bottom of the halfpipe

BEIJING — Kaishu Hirano of Japan is 19. He competed here in snowboarding, in the halfpipe. He did not win. His brother, Ayumu, did. No matter. Kaishu flew.

One of the basic tricks in snowboarding is called a method air. In this case, a backside air. You grab the heel edge of the board with your hand and pull the board up, arching your back. If all goes well, until gravity does its thing, for just an instant you are emblematic of human possibility there in the air, silhouetted against a clear blue sky, elegant, graceful, flying, literally flying. The American Ross Powers did this on his winning run in the pipe in Salt Lake City in 2002. Now, Kaishu Hirano.

The difference is that Kaishu Hirano flew way higher. From the bottom of the pipe to where he was up there was more than 46 feet. Above the lip of the pipe: 24 feet, four inches.

When the first drafts of the record of these 2002 Beijing Winter Games are written, there likely will be many references to Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure skater, and other controversies. Those are of course very real. The Games can sometimes spotlight some of the most challenging issues confronting our fragile and broken world.

But what about the achievement — the striving, the joy — of Kaishu Hirano and roughly 3,000 athletes from around the world?

The hypocrisy files and 'irreparable harm': inside the Beijing loop and a Texas courtroom

The hypocrisy files and 'irreparable harm': inside the Beijing loop and a Texas courtroom

BEIJING — The news here Friday in the bubble — er, closed loop — was all about how International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach came down hard, and appropriately, on the 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s “entourage.”

“We are following the rule of law and we are feeling at the same time with a minor, with a 15-year-old girl who obviously has a drug in her body that should not be in her body and the ones who have administered these drugs in her body — these are the ones who are guilty,” Bach said, referring to Valieva’s Dec. 25 positive test for trimetazidine.

A few moments later, Bach turned to a World Anti-Doping inquiry into the people around Valieva. She crumbled on the ice Thursday night, sliding from first to fourth and breaking into tears, only to be met by her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, asking why she gave up, a moment that Bach called chilling and disturbing: “I hope that this inquiry will bring clarity so that the full truth is coming to light that the people who are responsible for this, that they will be held responsible for this — that they will be held responsible for this in the right way and when I say the right way, I say in the strongest possible way.”

When the mob turns on a 15-year-old, and she breaks

When the mob turns on a 15-year-old, and she breaks

BEIJING — That was awful to watch, heartbreaking, infuriating. It will go down as one of the worst moments in modern Olympic history.

Kamila Valieva is just 15. No one deserves the grievous public shaming she got here in 2022 in Beijing. And for what?

Predictably, on the ice Thursday evening, Valieva broke. She fell. She cried. Expected to win, she dropped to fourth, out of the medals.

Who is to blame for this? This is now the question.

Valieva skates as the rush to unwarranted judgment roars on

Valieva skates as the rush to unwarranted judgment roars on

BEIJING — People, let’s smell the coffee, please. The world is not black and white. Them and us. Americans: you want to make like U.S. Olympic athletes have never, ever used performance-enhancing drugs. Like no one in a position of authority at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee has ever had a doping run-in.

The glass house thing is truly unbelievable.