Humphries in contention
American trails by 0.04 heading into Sunday’s final runs
Kaillie Humphries is headed into the final day of the major international sliding season with a chance at another world championship.
Humphries is in second place midway through the inaugural women’s monobob world championship race, trailing Germany’s Stephanie Schneider by 0.04 seconds after Saturday’s first two runs in Altenberg, Germany.
The final two runs are Sunday.
“We’ve only had so many runs on this track, and we didn’t get our monobob sleds until January,” Humphries said. “We’re still learning, and on one of the most technically challenging tracks in the world.”
Humphries won her record fourth women’s bobsled championship last weekend, teaming with Lolo Jones for that title. Monobob, as the name suggests, is run with just a driver in the sled and is a relatively new discipline that will be in the Olympics for the first time next year. Humphries competed in two monobob races this season, winning both.
Schneider had the secondfastest time in both runs, posting a combined time of 2 minutes, 0.52 seconds. Humphries’ time was 2:00.56 and Germany’s Laura Nolte — the first-run leader — was third in 2:00.70.
Kaillie Humphries of the U.S. competes during the women's monobob competition at the Bobsled and Skeleton World Championship in Altenberg, Germany. She trails Germany’s Stephanie Schneider with two runs remaining on Sunday.
Women’s downhill: Corinne Suter ended Switzerland’s 32-year wait for a women’s downhill world title on Saturday, winning her fourth straight medal at a major championship but the first gold. Racing in sunshine under crisp blue skies, Suter mastered the Olympia delle Tofane and decided the race by using excellent gliding skills on the flat bottom section of the iconic course. Suter’s teammate Lara Gut-behrami led for most of her run, but two costly mistakes saw her drop to third, earning bronze after she had beaten Suter to gold in Thursday’s super-g. Kira Weidle finished a career-best second.
Note: Olympic skiing champion Ted Ligety’s career ended six days earlier than planned. The two-time Olympic champ was going to retire next Friday after the giant slalom at the skiing world championships. But he woke up to severe back pain on Friday and announced on Saturday that a scan revealed his back was “herniated to the point it’s not safe to ski right now.”
Death threats. Racist abuse. Sexist slurs. And social media accounts allowed to stay active even after spreading bile.
English football has reached its breaking point with players, coaches, referees and officials aghast at the ongoing proliferation of hate aimed at them on Instagram and Twitter.
A week that began with the Premier League’s most high profile referee reporting threats of physical harm to police and more Black players targeted by racist users, drew a pledge by Instagram to clamp down on hate but undercut by leniency shown toward abusers.
It’s why English football leaders have taken their concerns to the top of the social media giants, uniting for an unprecedented joint letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter counterpart Jack Dorsey that demands the platforms stop being “havens for abuse” by taking tougher action to eradicate the viciousness.
“Your inaction has created the belief in the minds of the anonymous perpetrators that they are beyond reach,” read the letter whose signatories included officials from the English Football Association, the Premier League, Women’s Super League and the organizations representing players, managers and referees.
But the platforms that allow clubs and players to engage with fans — and monetize sponsorships — can also be used as a force for good.
Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford showed just that by using Twitter in particular in the last year to campaign against child poverty.
“It wasn’t here 10-15 years ago and we’re privileged to have it, to connect with people all over the world with different cultures and religions,” Rashford told broadcaster Sky Sports. “To see people use it in a negative way is stupid. Hopefully they can sort out that.”
Rashford knows how disturbing the platforms can be as he was targeted with racist messages along with United teammates Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial after a defeat to Sheffield United last month.
Rashford wants racist users “deleted straight away.” Facebook, which owns Instagram, this week pledged to disable accounts that send abusive direct messages as part of a push to show it would act on racism. But it became clearer when pressed on the policy that only a repeated number of unspecified racist messages would see a user banned.
“That isn’t really a position that’s acceptable to many people,” he said.
Instagram’s lack of a zero tolerance approach meant the account that racially abused Swansea player Yan Dhanda after an FA Cup loss to Manchester City on Wednesday will remain active, with only some messaging functions disabled for an unspecified period of time.
“We think it’s important people have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes,” said a statement from Instagram. “If they continue to break our rules this account will be removed.”
That does not go far enough for Swansea, which said it was
“shocked and surprised by the leniency shown” over such toxic conduct.