Jesse Smith to lead U.S. water polo team in his record-tying 5th Olympics
Jesse Smith is heading to his record-tying fifth Olympics after he was selected Friday for the U.S. men’s water polo team for the Tokyo Games.
Smith, 38, leads a 13-man team that includes five players from the country’s disappointing 10th-place finish in Rio. Smith matches Tony Azevedo for most Olympic teams for a U.S. water polo athlete.
The 6-foot-4 Smith, who played in college at Pepperdine, won silver at the 2008 Beijing Games, the last time the U.S. won a medal in the tournament.
The U.S. is coming off a surprising second-place finish in the World League Super Final. It beat Italy 10-8 in the semifinals before losing 9-8 to Montenegro on Thursday.
Ben Hallock, Alex Bowen, Luca Cupido and Alex Obert also are back from 2016. Hallock, a 6-foot-6 center from Stanford, was 18 when he competed in Rio, and he is expected to take on a bigger role in Tokyo.
Hallock played club ball for Pro Recco in Italy this year, becoming the first American man to win the Champions League.
Hannes Daube, Johnny Hooper and Marko Vavic are among the eight Olympic newcomers.
Daube, 21, is considered one of the best young players in the world. He played for Olympiacos in Greece this season, alongside fellow U.S. attacker Max Irving.
Hooper, 24, brings some offensive punch after he scored 245 goals for Cal, ranking second on the school’s career list behind three-time Olympian Chris Humbert.
Vavic also made his first Olympic team. Vavic’s father, Jovan, is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges after he was arrested as part of a college admissions bribery scandal.
Marko Vavic, 22, scored 108 times over his first two seasons at USC, but the 6-foot-5 attacker is known more for his defensive ability.
• Olympic champion Brianna McNeal lost her appeal against a fiveyear ban for breaking anti-doping rules that prevents the American defending her 100-meter hurdles title at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said its judges dismissed McNeal’s challenge to the ban imposed by track and field authorities for “tampering or attempted tampering with any part of doping control.”
McNeal revealed the context of the case in an interview with the New York Times published ahead of the court in Switzerland announcing its ruling.
The 29-year-old runner said the case was related to missing a doping control in January 2020 while recovering from surgery to terminate a pregnancy.
In a later exchange with the AIU to verify the details, McNeal said she had changed the date on medical documents after mistaking when the surgery took place.
Jesse Smith, left, a Pepperdine alumnus, will lead a United States water polo team looking for a Tokyo Games finish much higher than its 10th place in Rio.
• Nicolò Barella and Lorenzo Insigne scored a goal each to give Italy a 2-1 win over Belgium in Munich and a spot in the Duropean Championship semifinals.
• Defending Copa America champion Brazil advanced to the semifinals with a 1-0 win over Chile after substitute Lucas Paquetá scored the only goal of the match in Rio de Janeiro.
Peru advanced to the semifinal after beating Paraguay on penalties 4-3 after a 3-3 score in regular time.
• Ruth Winder slipped into the leader’s pink jersey after her TrekSegafredo team won the opening team trial of the Giro d’Italia Donne in Cuneo, the most important stage race for female cyclists and a key effort ahead of the Olympic road race.
Winder, who has medal ambitions with the U.S. team in the Tokyo Games, was joined by Dutch rider Ellen van Dijk, Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy and Lizzie Deignan of Britain in powering her American squad to first place.