athlete

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych took his case to sport’s highest court Friday, detailing the reasons why he wanted to race at the Milan-Cortina Olympics in a helmet that paid tribute to his country’s war dead.

The arbitrator was moved by his story but ruled against him anyway, denying him his last chance for a win of any kind at this year’s Winter Olympics.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport denied Heraskevych’s appeal of his disqualification from the men’s skeleton race, agreeing with the International Olympic Committee and the sliding sport’s federation that his plan to wear a helmet showing the faces of more than 20 Ukrainian coaches and athletes killed since Russia invaded their country four years ago would violate Olympic rules.

“The court sided with the IOC and upheld the decision that an athlete could be disqualified from the Olympic Games without actual misconduct, without a technical or safety threat, and before the start,” wrote Yevhen Pronin, Heraskevych’s attorney.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said the sole arbitrator who heard the case sided with IOC policy about what athletes at an Olympics can say on a field of play — and that the “memory helmet” Heraskevych brought to the Milan-Cortina Games would not align with the rules.

The arbitrator, the court said, “found these limitations reasonable and proportionate,” especially since Heraskevych could show his helmet away from the racing surface, such as in interview areas and on social media. Heraskevych also wore the helmet in training runs.

The court added that the arbitrator “is fully sympathetic to Mr. Heraskevych’s commemoration and to his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian athletes because of the war.”

The appeal, which Heraskevych believed he would win, was largely moot anyway. He was disqualified from the competition 45 minutes before its start on Thursday, and whatever the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Friday wouldn’t have changed that.

“Looks like this train has left,” Heraskevych said after Friday’s hearing, knowing there was no way he could race. He left Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Olympic village on Thursday night with no plans to return.

He was blocked from racing by the IOC and the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation on Thursday after the slider and his father emerged from a last-minute, last-ditch meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry — who was unable to get Heraskevych to change his mind.

Coventry reiterated Friday that she believed the disqualification was justified. The IOC made its decision based on the guidelines for athlete expression at the Olympics, he said.

They say, in part, “the focus on the field of play during competitions and official ceremonies must be on celebrating athletes’ performances.” Heraskevych never made it to the field of play — not in competition, anyway.

“I think that he in some ways understood that but was very committed to his beliefs, which I can respect,” Coventry said. “But sadly, it doesn’t change the rules.”

The IOC contends that the rule is in place for multiple reasons, including protecting the athletes from pressure from their own countries or others about using Olympic platforms to make statements.

“I never expected it to be such a big scandal,” Heraskevych said.

He also said he found it puzzling that his accreditation for the Games was taken away, then returned in short order Thursday in what seemed like a goodwill gesture.

“A mockery,” he said.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport did agree that Heraskevych should keep his accreditation.

Heraskevych said he felt his disqualification fed into Russian propaganda, noting that he and other Ukrainian athletes have seen Russian flags at events at these Games — even though they are not allowed by Olympic rule. He has previously spoken out against the IOC’s decision to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete at Milan-Cortina as “neutral” athletes and said the IOC empowered Russia by awarding it the 2014 Sochi Games.

He also wondered why other tributes from these Olympics, such as U.S. figure skater Maxim Naumov displaying a photo of his late parents — killed in a plane crash last year — have been permitted without penalty.

Italian snowboard competitor Roland Fischnaller had a small Russian flag image on the back of his helmet during these Games, and Israeli skeleton athlete Jared Firestone wore a kippah with the names of the 11 athletes and coaches who were killed representing that country during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Pronin wrote that IOC representatives at Friday’s hearing said that “they were not punished because they did not declare this in advance, but did it after the fact, so there was no point in disqualifying them.”

The IOC said those cases were not in violation of any rules. Naumov showed his photo in the kiss-and-cry area and not while he was actually on the ice; Fischnaller’s helmet was a tribute to all the past Olympic sites he competed at, with Sochi included; and Firestone’s kippah “was covered by a beanie,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.

The IOC offered Heraskevych the chance to compete with a different helmet and bring the tribute helmet through the interview area after his runs. He also could have worn a black armband, which the IOC typically bans. It just didn’t want him making a statement by competing in the helmet.

“I think it’s the wrong side of history for the IOC,” Heraskevych said.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Annie Risemberg and Stefanie Dazio in Milan and Vasilisa Stepanenko in Warsaw contributed to this report.

MILAN — Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue Saturday.

The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands highlighting the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Italy.

Police held off the demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including students and families with small children, had dispersed.

Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about half a mile from the Olympic Village that’s housing about 1,500 athletes.

Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.

There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.

The demonstration coincided with U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony Friday, during which Vance was booed.

He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest that denounced the deployment of ICE agents to provide security for the U.S. delegation. ICE has drawn international condemnation for its role in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in U.S. cities, including the fatal shooting of two people in Minneapolis last month by ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the U.S. is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.

At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina d’Ampezzo. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.

“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Assn. of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.

“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure projects, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.

Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”

The demonstration followed another recently at which hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.

Like that protest, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in U.S. diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.

Barry and Rosa write for the Associated Press.

MILAN — One short week after Lindsey Vonn crashed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and tore her left anterior cruciate ligament, she was tearing down the hill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, a light knee brace warping the fabric of her racing suit the only obvious sign of anything amiss. When she finished the training run Friday, clocking the third-fastest time for a U.S. woman on the day, she casually fist bumped an American teammate at the finish line.

She made the feat look effortless. Sports medicine experts can say it’s anything but.

“It’s atypical to be able to compete without an ACL, at anything, but especially at a high level like Lindsey Vonn’s going to compete at,” said Clint Soppe, a board certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai. “So this is very surprising news to me as well.”

The ACL, which connects the shin bone to the femur, is a main stabilizing force in the knee and protects the lower leg from sliding forward. Straight-line movement doesn’t stress the major knee ligament and some day-to-day tasks such as walking are easily accomplished without an ACL. But what Vonn is doing is far from normal.

“If you add cutting, pivoting, changing directions, in 95% of humans, you need an ACL to do that,” said Kevin Farmer, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of Florida’s department of orthopedics and sports medicine. “She’s obviously fallen into that 5%.”

Farmer calls the rare group “copers.” They overcome the lack of an ACL by strengthening and engaging other muscles. It’s primarily the hamstrings and quadriceps, but everything, including the glutes, calves, hips and core, counts.

Vonn will have had just nine days between the Olympic downhill race and her injury when she stands at the start gate Sunday. But the 41-year-old has had her whole career to develop the type of strength and control necessary to carry her through the Games without an ACL. She’s already done it before.

Lindsey Vonn concentrates ahead of a downhill training run in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday.

(Marco Trovati / Associated Press)

Vonn skied on a torn right ACL for more than a month until withdrawing just before the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In 2019, she won a bronze medal at world championships without a lateral collateral ligament and three tibial fractures in her left knee. She said this week that the same knee feels better than it did during that bronze medal run.

“She’s dealt with knee injuries in this knee before, so she’s been able to develop mechanisms and strategies,” Farmer said. “She probably doesn’t even realize that, but just from years of practicing with a knee that’s not normal, her body has developed mechanisms of firing patterns that allow her knee to have some inherent stability that most people don’t have.”

For athletes who suffer major injuries for the first time, pain often prevents them from firing their muscles, said Jason Zaremski, a nonoperative musculoskeletal and sports medicine physician and clinical professor at the University of Florida’s department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. But Vonn, whose injury history is almost as long as her resume, looked calm during training, her coach Aksel Lund Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday.

So even if she’s one ACL short, Vonn’s team knows she has more than enough of the intangibles to get her not only down the mountain, but into medal contention.

“Her mental strength,” Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday. “I think that’s why she has won as much as she has.”

Vonn completed her second training run Saturday with the third-fastest time before training was suspended after 21 athletes. She was 0.37 second behind compatriot Breezy Johnson, who is intimately familiar with what Vonn is attempting.

Johnson, a medal contender for the United States who led the second training run at 1 minute and 37.91 seconds, attempted to ski in Cortina without an ACL in 2022. She had one successful training run, but crashed on the second one, sustaining further injuries that forced her to withdraw from the Beijing Olympics.

Johnson, like many, gasped when she saw Vonn’s knee buckle slightly on a jump during training Saturday. She said coming off jumps on this course are especially difficult.

“There are, I think, more athletes that ski without ACLs and with knee damage than maybe talk about it,” Johnson said at a news conference from Cortina. “… I think that people often are unwilling to talk about it because of judgment from the media and the outside.”

Critics say Vonn is taking a spot from a healthy teammate or that she simply refuses to give up the sport for good. But Vonn has already come to terms with the end of her career. She said she came out of retirement with a partially replaced right knee simply wanting an opportunity to put the perfect bow on her ski racing career at a course she especially loves.

The stage is different, but the sentiment is familiar to Zaremski. The doctor has worked with high school athletes who beg for a chance to play a final game after suffering a torn ACL. Through bracing, taping and treatment, sometimes there are temporary fixes for the biggest moments.

“If we’re trying to get a huge event like the Olympics, I would never put anything past [Vonn],” Zaremski said. “She’s an amazing, once-in-a-generation athlete.”

The track and field season begins in less than a month, and for an early look at who’s gotten faster should happen on Saturday when Arcadia High is the site for the California winter championships.

The meet is run by Rich Gonzalez, who also handles the Arcadia Invitational.

Servite is sending most of its top sprinters to the event, which includes running in the 60-, 150- and 300-meter races. Twins Jace and Jorden Wells have already shown they will be faster in their sophomore seasons. Ditto for Jaelen Hunter.

Another athlete earning rave reviews in the offseason has been Loyola’s Ejam Yohannes in the 200 and 400.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

The Olympics are back, wearing their warm Winter Games gear. Although there were will be a couple of weeks of sports competitions to come, none are possible without an opening ceremony, a combination of solemn official protocol with a fantastic representation of the host country’s culture and character, evoking the Olympic spirit itself. There are few opportunities to mount an entertainment of this scale — not even a Super Bowl halftime show can compare.

This year we are in Italy, for the bi-metropolitan Milan-Cortina games, held in the city’s San Siro Stadium and in the north where the mountains are. The ceremonies, too, were split geographically, with Olympic cauldrons in both cities, with the athletes’ parade further shared with Livigno and Predazzo, national delegations divided according to where their events would be held.

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1. Human bobbleheads of Italian composers Rossini, left, Puccini and Verdi. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) 2. Dancers on stage in San Siro Stadium. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The main business took place in the arena. Directed by Marco Balich, who specializes in big shows, it was elegant, in a sleek, clean-lined Italian way, and over the top, also in an Italian way. Color played a great part, the program beginning in white (a balletic interpretation of Antonio Canova’s sculpture “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss”), moving to to black and white (a nod to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and its paparazzi), and then to a riot of color, as giant floating tubes of paint sent streams of colored fabric stageward.) There were dancing human bobbleheads of opera composers Verdi, Puccini and Rossini, as if they were mascots for Team Rigoletto, Team Tosca and Team William Tell. There were dancing gladiators and moka pots, a phalanx of runway models dressed (in Armani) in green, white and red, to represent the Italian flag.

In white and shiny silver, with an ostrich feather boa and a reported $15 million worth of diamond jewelry, there was a statuesque, statue-still Mariah Carey, who is not Italian, but sang in Italian, the standard “Nel blu, dipinto di blu,” known here as “Volare,” which merged into her own “Nothing Is Impossible.” (She must by now be accounted a citizen of the world.) Why did I find this so moving? I am not someone who ordinarily cares anything about Carey, but she was marvelous in this context.

Mariah Carey performed the Italian tune “Volare,” before leading into “Nothing Is Impossible.”

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The parade of nations is also a fashion show; for whatever reason, the cold weather gear is generally better looking than the togs of summer. (As usual, Ralph Lauren designed the American outfits — white puffy jacket with knit caps of a Scandinavian pattern.) As ever, the countries arrived alphabetically (apart from Greece, who always gets to march first; Italy, coming in last as the host country; France, in penultimate position as the host of the next Winter Games; and the U.S., third to last as the host of the games, in 2034, after that). It makes neighbors of Lebanon, Lichtenstein and Lithuania, and so on, equal in standing if not in size. (I have a special fondness for the small delegations from the less imposing nations.) There was an especially big hand for the Ukrainian team, dressed in their national colors.

The second half opened with a cartoon in which an animated Sabrina Impacciatore (of “The White Lotus” and, “The Paper,” which NBC happily did not cross-promote), traveled backward through previous Winter Games before coming to life to lead an energetic production number that traveled back to now. (She should get some sort of athletic medal for this performance.) The Chinese pianist Lang Lang accompanied Cecilia Bartoli singing the Olympic anthem, and the great Andrea Bocelli, flanked by strings, offered a thrilling reading of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.” Surrounded by dancers, the Italian rapper Ghali read an antiwar poem by Gianni Rodari.

Sabrina Impacciatore leading a group of dancers during the ceremony.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The theme of the evening, and of evenings going forward, it is hoped, was “Armonia,” or harmony, not just between the city and the country (expressed symbolically through dance), but, as a series of speeches made clear, among everybody, everywhere.

“At a time when so much of the world is divided by conflict, your very presence demonstrates that another world is possible. One of unity, respect and harmony,” said Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee, addressing the athletes. Kirsty Coventry, the first female president of the IOC, noted that while Olympic athletes are fierce competitors, they “also respect, support and inspire one another. They remind us that we are all connected, that our strength comes from how we treat each other, and that the best of humanity is found in courage, compassion and kindness.”

And then there was Charlize Theron, of all people, quoting her countryman Nelson Mandela: “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference,” This is, of course, exactly what some portion of this nation would call “woke,” and though such divisions are not the exclusive province of the United States, it was easy enough to read this as a message delivered to the White House.

Charlize Theron quoted her fellow countryman Nelson Mandela in her speech.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Finally, two Olympic torches were lit two Olympic cauldrons, in Milan and Cortina, their flames at the center of shape-shifting spheres. Almost inevitably, the ceremonies flirted with, or embraced, corniness at times, but even (or especially) when it was corny, it was terrifically affecting. I ran through half a dozen handkerchiefs over the course of the proceedings. Admittedly, I might be unusually susceptible to these things, but I doubt I’m the only one.

Let the games begin.

The Enhanced Games launched as a concept in 2023, with some doping measures permitted under medical supervision.

Only substances approved by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can be taken, which is different to the list the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) allows for elite athletes.

Organisers have claimed the event “will deliver transparency and health safety by removing the stigma of enhancement – bringing its responsible usage into the light, within an approved medical framework, and one that protects athletes who would otherwise risk their health by operating in the dark to circumvent punitive structures in place today”.

However, the event has been criticised for endangering athletes’ health and undermining fair play, with Wada describing it as a “dangerous and irresponsible project” and Travis Tygart, chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, calling it a “clown show”.

Earlier this month, UK Athletics (UKA) said it did not recognise the Enhanced Games as a “legitimate sporting competition”.

UKA said it “places athletes’ health and welfare at serious risk”, adding that “any event that promotes or permits the use of harmful substances with the aim of pushing the human body to its limit for short-term goals is not sport as we value it”.

The Enhanced Games are planned to be an annual competition, initially comprising short-distance swimming, sprinting and weightlifting, with the inaugural event set to be held in Las Vegas on 24 May 2026.

The event offers appearance fees and bonuses, with Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev receiving a prize of $1m (£739,000) for beating a world record time in the US in February 2025.

Organisers said he swam 20.89 seconds in a 50m freestyle time trial, 0.02 seconds quicker than the world record set by Brazil’s Cesar Cielo in December 2009, although the time will not be recognised by World Aquatics.