We ask a lot of our Olympic athletes — to perform with grace and humility, to carry the Olympic spirit even as they pursue their own individual goals; to abide by the rules, and to accept their fates, however they may go, with dignity.

Jordan Chiles has exemplified all of that in these Paris Olympic Games.

Is it so much to ask the people who hold her Olympic dreams in their hands to do the same?

What is happening — and has happened — to Chiles and, by extension, Romania’s Ana Bărbosu, is a travesty of borderline technical malfeasance that has toyed with the emotions of two women who have done nothing wrong.

On Monday afternoon at Bercy Arena, Chiles finished her floor routine in the event final, scoring a 13.666, just out of reach of the 13.700 awarded to Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea and off the medal podium. Bărbosu, whose execution score was higher than her teammate’s, was awarded the bronze. Cecile Landi, Chiles’ coach, however, asked the judges to review the difficulty for one of the elements in Chiles’ floor routine. The request went ahead to the technical chair who agreed that, upon review, Chiles was not scored appropriately. Immediately her 13.666 was upped to a 13.766. She was the bronze medalist, not Bărbosu.

While Chiles sobbed in joy and Simone…

Before she could fully dry off and savor becoming the first American female swimmer to earn nine Olympic gold medals, Katie Ledecky was asked to turn her attention to 2028 and whether she would seek to compete in a fifth consecutive Games.

Ledecky will be 31 then, an age that’s considered advanced by most swimming metrics, but it’s hard not to wonder if accepted norms really apply to someone whose 14 Olympic medals are tied for fifth-most all-time and who is only the second swimmer and sixth athlete to earn gold in the same event in four consecutive Games, as Ledecky has in the 800-meter freestyle.

“I don’t feel like I’m close to being finished in the sport yet,” Ledecky said after setting an Olympic record in the 1,500 free last Wednesday in Paris. “I’d love to continue on, and just seeing the kind of support that the French athletes are getting here, I think all the U.S. athletes are thinking about how cool that could be in Los Angeles (site of the 2028 Games) having the home crowd. So, it would be amazing to be able to compete there.”

Such an occasion could make for a Disney-like ending to what has been a sublime career, with deafening cheers and swaying flags serving as…

PARIS — Resplendent in blue, sparkling like the Nile on a spring evening, a powerful woman in full command of her grace and power and commitment, Simone Biles grabbed the chain around her neck, her work for the night completed. The chain was not chosen at random.

It was a goat. For the GOAT.

“Some people love it, and then some people hate it, so it’s like the best of both worlds,” Biles said after coming from behind to capture the women’s all-around gold medal here at Bercy Arena, becoming just the second woman to win two all-around golds at an Olympics, and the first to do so in non-consecutive Olympiads.

“I was like, OK, if it goes well, I’ll wear the goat necklace — I know people will go crazy over it,” Biles continued. “But at the end of the day, it is crazy that I am in the conversation of greatest of all athletes. Because I think I’m still just Simone from Spring, Texas, that loves to flip.”

That hasn’t been the case for so, so long, and certainly not now. Not after Biles’ return from the most public of collapses, in Tokyo in 2021, her mental health in tatters for a variety of reasons. Not after she publicly advocated for her recovery, and for the recovery of others who dealt not only with mental abuse, but sexual abuse as well. Not after she…

PARIS — Many things happened Tuesday night at Bercy Arena, a pulsing 15,000-seat bowl of joy. There was the 2024 Olympics women’s team gymnastics finals. There were celebrity sightings. (Is that Spike Lee?) There was the production value of an Olympic Games that has, from beginning to present, been one long brilliant brush stroke.

There was all of that. Enough to fill an evening in Paris to the brim.

Except, then there was Simone Biles.

And anything that comes into contact with Biles’ orbit immediately seems to fall in line behind one impossibly large eclipse.

This is something one must see not only to believe, but to even remotely understand. All the voices with all the opinions about the woman who unquestionably stands as the greatest American gymnast in history, and as one of the greatest American Olympians ever, seem so especially small and insignificant and comically misguided when the scale of Biles’ presence is seen firsthand.

Tuesday in Paris was the ultimate — and perhaps final — tableau of that fact. Seeing Biles in a team competition is like seeing the Eiffel Tower. It stands alone, is all you see, but is surrounded by greatness.

Biles is competing later this week in three of four individual event finals, but Tuesday was very likely her final Olympic…

WHITE SULFUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — I’ve tried. I’ve really tried with Deshaun Watson. I defended the Browns pursuing him because Baker Mayfield wasn’t good enough and they needed to upgrade the most important position. Despite all his legal issues, Watson was the best quarterback available at the time. 

But Watson isn’t and has never been a victim in any of this. 

More than two dozen women said he harassed or assaulted them during massage appointments. More than two dozen civil lawsuits against him or the Houston Texans were settled in confidential agreements.

Shortly after arriving at the Greenbrier this week for the start of training camp, Watson was asked a standard, mundane camp question about rehab from his shoulder surgery and if anything has changed with his approach. Here was his answer. 

“I think, honestly, it’s really just blocking out all the bull—-,” he said. “It was tough coming in two years ago, different environment, different team, different all that. So you come in and your character’s been mentioned this way and then kind of flip on you and the biggest thing, you’re trying to get people to like you or improve. But now it’s like, at the end of the day, it’s two years in and if you don’t like me or you have your own opinions, then,…

INDIANAPOLIS — Athletes often speak in generalities as a defense mechanism. Rather than go in-depth on a potentially controversial topic, or even address the issue at all, they provide non-answers, using cliches and pre-programmed talking points to stay at a safe distance.

A part of me would like to believe that that’s what Caitlin Clark did Thursday morning when I asked if she was bothered by fans using her name as a weapon in the culture wars dividing the country. The Indiana Fever’s star guard didn’t close the door on the subject; she refused to even open it.

“No,” she declared. “I don’t see it. I don’t see it. That’s not where my focus is. My focus is here and on basketball. That’s where it needs to be, that’s where it has been, and I’m just trying to get better on a daily basis.”

Caitlin Clark was in town when Team USA held its final Olympic training camp this past April. She wasn’t in Cleveland, however, for the three-day USA Basketball Olympic workouts. She was nearby because her Iowa Hawkeyes were playing in the Final Four. Then, like now, Clark’s presence loomed large anyway.

The Olympic selection committee was in a tough spot: Go with a roster stacked with proven veterans or incorporate the highest-profile rookie in league history? There was no doubt either decision would be met with debate.

The committee revealed its philosophy with the 12-person Olympic roster — which shows deference to veterans and no rush to include Clark, who could be a significant part of the national team’s future. It favored roster continuity over the maximum exposure Clark’s presence brings.

Despite some expected (and not altogether unwarranted) dissatisfaction from Clark loyalists — the Olympic committee made a reasonable decision.

Speaking strictly basketball, the committee focused on selecting the best team for the Paris Games. It’s hard to quibble with the star-powered players they picked. The product on the floor will be elite — a roster stacked with MVPs, All-WNBA honorees and All-Stars. Nine players have Olympic experience (including Olympic 3×3…

After a weekend of having the most overanalyzed flagrant foul in WNBA history force-fed down my social media timeline, I woke Monday to learn the feeding was far from over. Good Morning America and other Disney-owned shows devoted entire segments to Chennedy Carter’s hip check of Caitlin Clark, as if there had never been a flagrant foul in the league’s history.

Later Monday, the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board used its institutional voice to declare that the foul “would have been seen as an assault” had it happened outside of a sporting event.

Can we calm down and take a breath? It was a hip check; repeat … a hip check! Did Carter bump her from the side when Clark was looking away and waiting on an inbound pass? Yes. Did Clark embellish her fall to the ground? Appeared that way. Did it deserve a flagrant designation? Absolutely. But the pearl-clutching that has followed is as exhausting as it is nauseating.

Did The Tribune editorial board do a think piece when the Sky rookie Angel Reese was slammed to the court and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun was ejected? Why not? But a hip check deserves commentary and is likened to a crime in a city that has had more than enough problems with street violence? Make it make sense.

Had I not watched in real time, I would…

CHICAGO — It was late in the third quarter when Angel Reese found herself on the ground again, locked in a losing battle under the basket with veteran power forward Alyssa Thomas.

Before Saturday’s game — her long-awaited, regular-season home debut — Reese said she was excited to play against Thomas, a skilled, bruising post player she used to watch at the University of Maryland.

And even after getting choke-slammed to the ground by Thomas as they tangled for a rebound late in the third quarter — a play that earned Thomas the heave-ho with a flagrant-2 foul — Reese wasn’t changing her tune following the undefeated Connecticut Sun’s 86-82 win over Chicago at Wintrust Arena.

“It’s no hard feelings to A.T.,” she said. “Obviously, I know she purposely, probably, didn’t do it towards me, but just being able to come out there and just be strong and stand on two feet, it was going to be a tough game and that’s what I’m built for. And my teammates had my back throughout the whole game. So I was prepared for it.”

Alyssa Thomas was ejected after a hard foul on Angel Reese. pic.twitter.com/CxJNDkfePd

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 26, 2024

A rookie getting abused by a veteran they once idolized? A tale as old as basketball. But Reese, who had 13 points…

No, this was not the fantastical introduction to the professional ranks for Caitlin Clark. Certainly not the bender of basketball bliss a segment of her legion was hoping to be hungover from at some point this weekend.

But rooks don’t get to jump over stuff.

Her first two games might feel like a letdown, especially Thursday’s epic home opener with the Indiana Fever. The moment was big enough for history to pull up to the venue. Sports’ latest transcendent figure created a buzz in Gainbridge Fieldhouse rivaling the New York Knicks-Indiana Pacers series.

Then the New York Liberty shut down the party, and Breanna Stewart destroyed any delusions that a rookie might be the WNBA’s best player.

But Clark will be fine. Just fine. This is just the first of many hard parts. A great game is coming. More bad ones, too. But it’s necessary. You can’t climb a mountain if it’s smooth.

Sabrina Ionescu talks about Caitlin Clark’s adjustment to the WNBA and hosting her on a visit to Oregon when she was deciding where to go to college

“I just know she’s gonna continue to work really hard and stick with it. Good things will happen to good people.” pic.twitter.com/thI8tDfs4C

— New York Liberty Videos (@SNYLiberty) May 17, 2024

The only question is whether the fans she’s brought to…