MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee, six-time world championship medalist Shilese Jones and national runner-up Skye Blakely are all facing health concerns ahead of the U.S. Olympic trials.
Lee, who has spent the better part of two years fighting multiple kidney issues, felt ill while training on Wednesday, though longtime coach Jess Graba doesn't believe it will hinder Lee's ability to compete when the trials begin on Friday night.
“She was a little nauseous this morning,” Graba said. “She’s fine. She got her assignment done. I was like, ‘You don’t need to keep going. Just be done.’”
The 21-year-old Lee has been dealing with kidney problems that have hindered her training and caused her weight to fluctuate wildly for more than 18 months. She arrived at trials in her hometown coming off a promising performance at the U.S. Championships, where she was a solid fourth in the all-around while looking impressive on uneven bars and balance beam, her two best events.
“She competes well,” Graba said. “She knows her scores transfer internationally well. So I think everybody is aware of that. So I think (trials is) just showing that she can be Suni (will be enough)."
Lee isn't the only contender coming in at less than 100%.
Jones, perhaps the best American gymnast not named Simone Biles, trained with her right shoulder taped to help her deal with a slight tear in her labrum.
The 21-year-old Jones pulled herself out of the U.S. Championships on the day the competition was scheduled to start earlier this month. She successfully petitioned to get into the trials, then took a week off to rest before building back up with the hope of being selected to the five-woman Olympic team on Sunday night.
“She’s feeling pretty good,” said Sarah Korngold, Jones' coach. “The biggest issue right now is just like routine endurance. Like, just we don’t have enough repetitions.”
Korngold said Jones was in a significant amount of pain ahead of the U.S. Championships but is in a better place during her second trip to the Olympic trials. Jones has been dealing with the shoulder intermittently for two years, with Korngold describing what happened earlier this month as a “flare-up.”
“Hopefully she’s proven enough to the selection committee that she does build fitness quickly and she does get in ‘routine shape’ fairly fast and we have more time (until Paris),” Korngold said. "So hopefully she does enough here to show that she’s ready to go."
Blakely, who tore a ligament in her elbow at the 2021 Olympic trials, had to be wheeled off the floor on Wednesday evening with a potentially serious leg injury. The 19-year-old was in tears as she went to be examined. Blakely came to Minneapolis as a leading contender to make the team following a dazzling performance at nationals.
USA Gymnastics strategic lead Alicia Sacramone Quinn, who is part of the three-person selection committee, said the team will be chosen on who the best five athletes are on Sunday night, not who might be ready in time for women's qualifying in Paris on July 28.
“We always kind of have to look at what’s being done right now in front of us,” Quinn said. “Because that’s what we can actually bank on.”
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
Sunisa Lee, top, left, trains on the beam ahead of the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials Wednesday, June 26, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Sunisa Lee trains on the bars ahead of the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials Wednesday, June 26, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Seesawing results released early Saturday in Iran’s presidential election put the race between little-known reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-liner Saeed Jalili, with the lead trading between the two men as a runoff vote appeared likely.
Iranian state television reported the results which did not initially put either man in a position to win Friday's election outright, potentially setting the stage for a second round of voting to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash last month.
So far, no turnout figures have been offered— a crucial component of whether Iran's electorate backs its Shiite theocracy after years of economic turmoil and mass protests.
Voters faced a choice between the three hard-line candidates and Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon.
After counting over 19 million votes, Pezeshkian had 8.3 million while Jalili held 7.18 million. Another candidate, hard-line parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, had some 2.67 million votes while Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi had over 158,000 votes.
Iranian law requires that a winner gets more than 50% of all votes cast. If not, the race’s top two candidates will advance to a runoff a week later. There’s been only one runoff presidential election in Iran’s history: in 2005, when hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bested former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
As has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and those calling for radical change have been barred from running, while the vote itself will have no oversight from internationally recognized monitors.
There had been calls for a boycott, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi. Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of the leaders of the 2009 Green Movement protests who remains under house arrest, has also refused to vote along with his wife, his daughter said.
There’s also been criticism that Pezeshkian represents just another government-approved candidate. In a documentary on the reformist candidate aired by state TV, one woman said her generation was “moving toward the same level” of animosity with the government that Pezeshkian’s generation had in the 1979 revolution.
Raisi, 63, died in the May 19 helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and others. He was seen as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor. Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.
The voting came as wider tensions have gripped the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic continues to enrich uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build — should it choose to do so — several nuclear weapons.
Despite the recent unrest, there was only one reported attack around the election. Gunmen opened fire on a van transporting ballot boxes in the restive southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, killing two police officers and wounding others, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. The province regularly sees violence between security forces and the militant group Jaish al-Adl, as well as drug traffickers.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran.
In this photo provided by Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, reformist candidate for the Iranian presidential election Masoud Pezeshkian casts his ballot as he waves to media in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians are voting in a snap election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi. (Majid Khahi, ISNA via AP)
A man casts his ballot during the presidential election as he holds a picture of the late President Ebrahim Raisi in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians were voting Friday in a snap election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month, as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman fills out her ballot during the Iranian presidential election in a polling station at the shrine of Saint Saleh in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians were voting Friday in a snap election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month, as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to media after casting his vote during the presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians were voting Friday in a snap election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month, as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman prepares to casts her ballot during the presidential election at a polling station inside the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians are voting in a presidential election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash in May along with the country's foreign minister and several other officials. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei arrives to vote for the presidential election, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians voted Friday in a snap election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, with the race's sole reformist candidate vowing to seek "friendly relations" with the West in an effort to boost his campaign. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman prepares to casts her ballot during the presidential election at the Iranian consulate in Basra southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians are voting in a presidential election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash in May along with the country's foreign minister and several other officials. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jourani)
In this photo provided by Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, hard-line former Iranian senior nuclear negotiator and candidate for the presidential election Saeed Jalili casts his ballot in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 28, 2024. Iranians are voting in a snap election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi. (Alireza Sotakabr, ISNA via AP)
