MLS awards expansion franchise to St. Louis for 2022 debut

The prospects of a Major League Soccer franchise ever calling St. Louis home appeared to have died two years ago when voters turned down the use of a business tax to finance a new downtown stadium.

Then a new potential ownership group came along.

Led by members of the founding family of car rental giant Enterprise, the city began to work anew last fall on its pitch for a professional soccer team. On Tuesday, the league officially announced that St. Louis would become its 28th club when it begins play for the 2022 season.

“Our ownership group has come a long way since we first announced our bid last October at MathewsDickey Boys and Girls Club, and it’s an incredible feeling to now be able to say, ‘St. Louis is home to the first official majority female-led ownership group in MLS,’” said Carolyn Kindle Betz, granddaughter of Enterprise founder Jack Taylor and the president of Enterprise Holdings Foundation.

“Our MLS team and stadium will only add to St. Louis’ renaissance currently under way,” Kindle Betz said, “and will provide us with a great opportunity to bring together many different segments of the community, uniting people in their love for the game.”

Pan Am protesters each get 12 months of probation

DENVER >> The letters went to the two protesters. The message was meant for a much wider audience.

The CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee sent letters of reprimand to hammer thrower Gwen Berry and fencer Race Imboden for protesting on the medals stand last week at the Pan American Games, but the 12-month probations that came with the letters also included a none-too-subtle signal for anyone vying for next year’s Olympics.

“It is also important for me to point out that, going forward, issuing a reprimand to other athletes in a similar instance is insufficient,” Sarah Hirshland wrote in the letters sent Tuesday.

Both will be eligible for the Olympics next summer, when the United States will be in the heat of a presidential campaign.

Chinese swimmer granted public trial for hearing

GENEVA >> Chinese swimmer Sun Yang will get the rare public trial he asked for to answer an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency that could lead to his ban from the 2020 Olympics.

The open hearing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport will probably be in Switzerland but is “unlikely to be before the end of October,” the court said on Tuesday.

Sun is following another threetime Olympic swimming champion, Michelle Smith de Bruin of Ireland, as the only athletes opting not to have a closed-door hearing in the sports court’s 35year history. She lost her case in

1999.

His lawyers said last month that Sun “objects to being tried by the Australian press.”

Details of evidence in the previously confidential court process were published on the eve of the world championships held last month in South Korea.