Caeleb Dressel made it to the 50-meter butterfly final but again failed to qualify for the world championships, finishing third at the U.S. nationals. Dressel touched the wall in 23.35 seconds in the non-Olympic event, which he won at the last two worlds in 2019 and 2022.
The Colorado Avalanche have acquired forward Ross Colton from the Tampa Bay Lightning. The move almost certainly spells the end of J.T. Compher's time with the Avalanche. A person with knowledge of the situation tells The Associated Press that Compher is testing the free agent market. Colton scored in the clinching game when the Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2021. He and Tampa Bay lost to Colorado in 2022. Colton is a pending restricted free agent who's expected to get a raise from the $1.25 million he made last season.
Tennessee State University announced it will become the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to introduce ice hockey. The program has been created in partnership with the National Hockey League, National Hockey League Players Association and the Nashville Predators. The announcement comes on the date of the NHL draft. Since 2017, the NHL and the players Association have sponsored feasibility studies to U.S. colleges and universities that are interested in exploring the addition of Division I men's and women's programs. TSU and the NHL began their study in 2021.
Simone Biles is back. The gymnastics superstar plans to return to competition at the U.S. Classic outside Chicago in early August. The meet will be Biles' first since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Biles made headlines at the 2020 Games when she removed herself from several events to focus on her mental health. She returned on the last day of the meet to earn bronze on balance beam, her seventh career Olympic medal. Biles will be joined at the U.S. Classic by 2020 Olympic champion Sunisa Lee.
Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh has said since the start of the war that all Russian and Belarusian athletes should be excluded from the 2024 Paris Olympics. Mahuchikh does not understand why opinions have now changed at the International Olympic Committee. The Olympic bronze medalist says IOC president Thomas Bach supported excluding Russians last year. Mahuchikh says the situation in Ukraine has not changed. The 21-year-old Dnipro native says Ukrainians "will do everything possible that the Russians and Belarusians are not allowed to go" to next year's Paris Games.
Katie Ledecky has joined an elite club, earning her sixth trip to the world championships with a dominating victory in the 800-meter freestyle at the U.S. nationals. Ledecky was under her own world-record pace for much of the race before settling for the victory in 8 minutes, 7.07 seconds — her third-fastest time ever in the grueling event. Ledecky became only the sixth swimmer to make the world championships for the sixth time, joining Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Natalie Coughlin, Elizabeth Beisel and Nathan Adrian.
PHILADELPHIA — James Harden might have side-eyed questions this week — much like he did in a playful reaction in his Houston days — about his future with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson can begin building up his roster again after spending much of the past year tearing it down. That process is expected to begin with the Blackhawks selecting forward Connor Bedard with the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft on Wednesday. Beyond that is when the intrigue begins. The intrigue revolves around when Russian Matvei Michkov is selected, because he is under contract to play in his native Russia through 2025-26. Another question is when the first defenseman goes off the board in what is a top-heavy class of forwards. Anaheim has the second pick, followed by Columbus, San Jose and Montreal.
Caeleb Dressel has finished 29th in the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. nationals to fall far short of qualifying for the world championships in an event he won at the Tokyo Olympics. Dressel fell farther and farther behind in the last of eight heats, touching the wall behind everyone else. His time of 49.42 seconds was a whopping 1.79 behind top qualifier Ryan Held. It was a sobering reminder of how far Dressel has to go after walking away from swimming last summer during the world championships in Budapest, Hungary. Dressel was nearly 2.5 seconds off his gold medal-winning performance in Tokyo.
It took more than three decades after the founding of the Women's Tennis Association for all four Grand Slam tournaments to agree to give the same prize money to female and male players. Now the women's tour is pledging to make sure its athletes also get identical paychecks at some other top-tier events in the coming years. The St. Petersburg, Florida-based WTA has announced that it is setting up what it called a "pathway to equal prize money" by 2027 for certain tournaments and 2033 for others. Changes must be approved by the WTA Board of Directors in August.
LSU's Jay Johnson became the first baseball coach to win a national championship before his third year at a school. His Tigers won a three-game College World Series finals against Florida to give the program its seventh title and first since 2009. Johnson was at Arizona when the LSU opportunity presented itself. He said the chance to coach Dylan Crews convinced him it was the right job. Crews was part of a returning core of players. Johnson added two of the top players in the transfer portal in pitcher Paul Skenes and third baseman Tommy White.
Alyssa Thomas has kept the Connecticut Sun competitive with her all-around play. She will need to find a way to increase her productivity with Connecticut center Brionna Jones sidelined for the remainder of the season because of a ruptured Achilles' tendon. Thomas now owns the WNBA record for triple-doubles after posting her fourth in a regular season game on Sunday. That broke a tie with Sabrina Ionescu and Candace Parker on the all-time leaderboard. Thomas also has two in the playoffs. The Sun lost former MVP Jonquel Jones in a trade to New York and Jasmine Thomas in a deal with Los Angeles in the offseason. Despite those losses Connecticut has the second best record in the league a year after their finals appearance.
NEW YORK — The 2023-24 NHL season opens on Oct. 10 with a tripleheader headlined by the Vegas Golden Knights raising their first Stanley Cup banner.
The NHL and NHLPA are launching a new Player Inclusion Coalition aimed at diversifying hockey and making it more welcoming. The 20-member group includes current and former men's and women's players with minority and LGBTQ+ representation. It's the latest step in a process started in the summer of 2020 when the police killing of George Floyd led to a worldwide reckoning on racial matters. It also comes on the heels of several incidents related to Pride nights around the league, when a handful of players refused to wear rainbow-colored jerseys for warmups.
 Connor McDavid has won the Ted Lindsay Award as the NHL’s most outstanding player as voted by his peers, a clear-cut choice after the highest-scoring season by a player in more than a quarter-century. Hart won the Lindsay Award for the fourth time. He was also expected to win the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP later Monday night in the league’s annual award ceremony.
