Why isn’t Gabby Williams playing in the WNBA?

It’s a question that Williams has had to reckon with too many times over the past four years, and one that is once again at the forefront after the former UConn guard’s dominant showing at the Paris Olympics. As Williams debates a return to the league she has played 135 games in since 2018, the barriers to her re-entry raise important questions about player agency in the WNBA and what changes the players union should prioritize as they decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement at the end of 2024.

Williams, who led France to a silver medal and averaged 15.5 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.8 steals per game during the Olympics, entered the 2024 WNBA offseason as an unrestricted free agent. She has been an ace perimeter defender throughout her professional career and has improved her ballhandling and shot creation while playing in Europe and could immediately step into a guard rotation for a contender.

But Williams has been an intermittent member of the WNBA since 2021. She couldn’t play that entire season and has dealt with prioritization challenges each of the last two years. The players union has a variety of priorities to address in a new CBA, including salaries, maternity protections (of particular…

The U.S. women’s national team are Olympic gold medalists again. And while it’s only been 10 days since they defeated Brazil 1-0 in Paris to reclaim their place as the No. 1 team in the world, Emma Hayes’ players will soon be back with their respective clubs, pushing for even more silverware.

Most of the gold medalists are expected to return to the NWSL next week, as the league resumes on August 23 after a six-week pause for the Games. Clubs are already marketing players’ returns with on-field ceremonies and celebrations and many players are already back in their teams’ home markets, if not out on the field.

New Jersey-based Gotham FC’s roster includes six U.S. Olympians – Lynn Williams, Rose Lavelle, Crystal Dunn, Emily Sonnett, Tierna Davidson and Jenna Nighswonger – plus bronze-medalist Germany’s goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger. Several of the gold medalists were at Red Bull Arena on Monday for the friendly against English champions, and Hayes’ previous employers, Chelsea. They watched Chelsea’s 3-1 win, and mingled with their teammates before and after.

Gotham FC has dubbed the home match against Portland Thorns on Saturday as its…

Gymnast Ana Bărbosu received her bronze medal in a ceremony in Romania on Friday following a controversial ruling that stripped America’s Jordan Chiles of the medal.

The Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee hosted the ceremony in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, for Bărbosu, who received her medal, an Olympic poster and a mascot like other medal recipients in Paris. Romania’s prime minister Marcel Ciolacu presented her with a floral bouquet before Bărbosu spoke.

She said the Olympic spirit is more important than misunderstandings and, “I want to believe that the day will come when all three of us (Bărbosu, Chiles and follow Romanian gymnast Sabrina Maneca-Voinea) will receive a bronze medal.”

The controversy stems from the women’s gymnastics floor final inside Paris’ Bercy Arena on Aug. 5. Chiles, the last of the nine gymnasts to perform, received an initial score of 13.666, placing her fifth behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade (gold medalist), America’s Simone Biles (silver medalist) and Romania’s Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who each scored a 13.700. (Bărbosu was ahead of Maneca-Voinea for having a higher execution score, meaning the judges thought she hit a cleaner routine.)

Following Chiles’ routine, her coach Cecile Landi submitted an inquiry,…

If it was up to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Jordan Chiles would keep her bronze medal for her routine in the women’s gymnastics floor exercise at the Paris Olympics, and Romanian gymnasts Ana Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea would each get one, too.

But in a 29-page detailing of its ruling that led Olympic officials to strip Chiles of her first individual medal, CAS said the global governing body for gymnastics botched its officiating of the event and was unwilling to make up for it by awarding all three gymnasts medals, even though each of the athletes had arguments for the bronze.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) also did not keep track of the timing of an inquiry from Chiles’ coach about her score during the Aug. 5 competition, a lapse CAS called a “failure.” Ultimately, the court ruled the inquiry came four seconds after the allowed one-minute window for Chiles’ score to be checked.

The details from CAS on Wednesday squarely blamed FIG for the problems that arose during one of the most dramatic moments of the Paris Games. After the competition, Romanian officials appealed to the court, which had set up a three-person panel at the Olympics specifically to arbitrate disputes.

The panel said it was limited in its review, leading to heartbreak for…

The Paris Olympics ended Sunday, but controversy and complexity regarding who should receive one bronze medal continues.

American gymnast Jordan Chiles stepped onto the podium as the third-place finisher in the women’s gymnastics floor exercise on Aug. 5. One week later, the International Olympic Committee has said it will reallocate that medal to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu. The days in between included a web of decisions by various governing bodies. Ultimately, it boils down to a question over four seconds on a frantic evening inside Paris’ Bercy Arena.

Here’s everything we know about the situation so far and what could come next.

What happened during the floor final? 

Nine gymnasts competed in the floor exercise final after advancing out of the qualifying. The order of their routines was determined by a random draw. 

Bărbosu competed fifth and received a 13.700. Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, another Romanian gymnast, competed eighth and also received a 13.700, but Bărbosu stayed in third place, ahead of Maneca-Voinea, because of a higher execution score. Maneca-Voinea’s score reflected a one-tenth deduction for a step out of bounds, but the Romanian gymnast has since asserted she did not go out of bounds. Her coach did not ask for a review on the day of the final.

Chiles,…

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A foot on the line guaranteed 61 consecutive wins for Team USA’s women’s basketball squad, which now means six gold medals for Diana Taurasi – six!

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The Golden Dagger

Steph Curry put the entire tournament to bed

Nuit nuit! Four years of French honors in high school told me that translates to “Night, night.” That’s what Steph Curry said to Serbia and France in consecutive games on Team USA’s way to the gold medal. The men’s team took home gold for the fifth straight Olympics and the eighth time in nine Olympic Games since NBA players were allowed to compete.

I’ve openly been an arrogant American basketball fan, daring the rest of the world to beat Team USA. And while some might want to focus on close contests as proof of the world having caught up, I will disagree vehemently. The gold medals are hanging around Team USA’s collective necks, and I can thank Curry, who went crazy against Serbia and did it again in the gold medal game against France. To recap:

• He had 36 points (one shy of Team USA’s Olympic single-game mark set by Carmelo Anthony) and went 9-of-14 from deep in the 95-91 semifinal win. USA outscored…

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Good morning! Don’t wreck anyone today.

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Top Cinq: An Olympics parfait

Can the Olympics happen every year? I know, I know, the fact that they happen every four years (well, every two years in between Summer and Winter editions) make them more special, but, man — that was a fun month. 

There were too many great moments to fit into one newsletter, so here goes an impossible top-five list … reverse chronologically, because I am a weak man who can’t decide what’s best: 

5. U.S. women’s hoops dominance, then drama
This team won its eighth straight gold medal yesterday, but it wasn’t the romp we expected: The Americans prevailed 67-66, and that one-point difference existed only because French guard Gabby Williams’ foot was on the line when she banked in a long two-pointer as time expired:

UNBELIEVABLE ENDING IN PARIS.

Gabby Williams banked it in at the buzzer but her FOOT WAS ON THE THREE-POINT LINE. TEAM USA WINS BY A SINGLE POINT.#ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/DJI7YxfVMl

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 11, 2024

It was a fitting finale for this golden era of U.S. women’s hoops, as David Aldridge wrote, and…

After nearly three weeks and more than 1,000 medals, the Paris Olympics have awarded their final gold.

From the ambitious opening ceremony to the handoff to 2028 host Los Angeles, the Paris Games delivered numerous memorable moments. Acclaimed stars cemented their legacies and new faces became Olympic fixtures.

But some stellar performances and viral memes stood above the rest. To highlight and celebrate the best of the 2024 Games, a group of 20 staff members of The Athletic voted and compiled this list of our “Olympic Superlative” winners. (It should be noted this is not a definitive list — but a fun exercise.)

So with that, here’s who stayed winning in our eyes.

Most dominant performance

(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)

Winner: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (five votes)

This category was for the athlete (or team) who put together the best, most undeniable Olympic campaign.

McLaughlin-Levrone, the American hurdler and sprinter, won gold in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, setting a world record at 50.37 seconds. On Saturday, she closed her Games with another gold in the women’s 4×400 relay, pulling away from the field in her leg, which was just a tenth of a second off the world record.

Runners-up: Simone Biles and Armand “Mondo” Duplantis (three votes each)

Biles, the American…

Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James not only brought the United States an Olympic gold medal.

They delivered massive viewership numbers as well.

NBC said on Sunday that the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team’s thrilling 98-87 victory over France averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock based on fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. The company said it was the most-watched gold medal game since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The game peaked at 22.7 million viewers from 5-5:15 p.m. ET in the final quarter of the game.

It was the fifth consecutive gold medal for the U.S. in basketball. The gold medal game was a massive viewership jump from the final in Tokyo, which drew 9.3 million viewers as well as Rio (11.7 million).

“We got our moment,” said James following the win. “It’s a basketball world. Everybody loves the game. We just hope that we continue to inspire people all over the world.”

The U.S-France meeting was also the most-streamed event of the Paris Olympics across NBCU digital properties with an average minute audience of 2.7 million viewers.

NBC on Sunday also announced the viewership for the women’s gold medal soccer game: The U.S. Women’s National Team’s 1-0 victory over Brazil averaged approximately 9.0 million viewers on NBC and…

With the Paris Olympics complete, the U.S. topped the total medal count and tied China for the most golds.

China held a slight lead over the U.S. entering Sunday and claimed its final gold medal with Li Wenwen’s weightlifting win in the women’s +81 kilogram division. The Americans caught up to China with Jennifer Valente’s gold in women’s cycling and a nail-biting win over France in the women’s basketball gold medal game.

The U.S. and China both leave Paris with 40 gold medals, marking the first time two countries have tied in gold medal total at the Summer Games. In 1948, the Winter Games saw a tie for gold at the St. Moritz Olympics when both Norway and Sweden won four.

In Paris, the Americans topped the total medal count with 126 and China finished second with 91. Great Britain (65), host France (64) and Australia (53) round out the top five.

Team USA’s 126 Olympic medals are the third-highest total for the country and the biggest haul since the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.