🏀 Sports Stars React To Texas Tragedy

Play on, it's Thursday, 26 May

🔊 Sport Today Podcast

This morning, Sam Ferris and Lucy Watkin are at the mic. 

Today's listen time: 9 minutes.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

📺  What we're watching

🏀 10.30am - NBA Eastern Conference Finals - Heat v Celtics - FTX Arena, Miami - Foxtel, Kayo

🎾 7.00pm - French Open - Philippe-Chatrier Court, Paris - 9Gem, Stan Sport 

🏉 7.50pm - NRL - Storm v Sea Eagles - AAMI Park, Melbourne - Channel 9, Foxtel, Kayo

All times are in AEST

🏀 Kerr calls for an end to gun violence 

Athletes and influential sports figures have responded to the tragic events in Uvalde, Texas that saw 19 children and 2 adults murdered at an elementary school yesterday.

Golden points: If you’ve got Twitter, you would’ve seen Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr speak before his team’s NBA Western Conference Finals game.

• In a powerful address, Kerr addressed US Senators and bemoaned their inaction when it came to changing gun laws.

• This is a subject close to his heart because his dad was shot dead in a terrorist attack in Lebanon in 1984. 

• The Warriors lost the game to Dallas, and star player Steph Curry said afterwards that the attack was on every parent’s mind. 

They said it: “These are kids and we keep putting them in harm's way at school. Like seriously "AT SCHOOL" where it's supposed to be the safest.” - LeBron James tweeted his disbelief. 

Key click: Check out the Squiz Today newsletter for more information on the Uvalde attack.

Watch it: Here’s Kerr’s press conference from yesterday.

⚽ Chelsea sold for record figure 

If you’ve got a spare $4.41 billion lying around then you could get 9 billion Chomp bars or you could buy Chelsea Football Club.

Golden points: Well, you’ve missed out on the latter because a group of people led by American Todd Boehly bought the English Premier League team.

• Boehly is no stranger to the world of sport. He’s a part-owner of baseball team the LA Dodgers and he also has stakes in LA basketball teams the Lakers and Sparks. 

• The $4.41 billion deal is the highest price ever for a sporting team, but former owner Roman Abramovich will not profit from it.

• Abramovich was forced to sell the club after 19 years because of his close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

What’s next: The deal has been approved by the EPL and the British government. The money will be used to help humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

⚽ All Stars shine bright against Spanish giants 

Spanish football club Barcelona will never forget their first trip to Australia. 

The score: Barcelona defeated A-League All Stars 3-2.

Golden points: What a way to start a massive week of football in this country. A huge crowd, plenty of goals and our local players almost pulled off the upset in front of 70,014 people at Sydney's Accor Stadium.

• The All Stars actually led 2-1 in the 2nd half thanks to a goal to Adama Traore, but Barcelona’s Adama Traore then equalised before Ansu Fati scored the winner in the 77th minute.

• There are a few A-League players who would have caught the eye of international viewers, including 17yo Garang Kuol who hit the post late in the game.

Watch it: Here are the highlights from last night's game. 

🏈 Appleby takes a punt on a career change 

NFL hopefuls will be hoping to be in like Flynn if the former AFL player can crack it in the States.

Golden points: Flynn Appleby is getting ready to make the big move from Aussie Rules to play college football for Rutgers.

• Appleby wasn’t really getting much of a go in Australia. He was cut by Collingwood after 11 games and then made the 2021 VFL Team of the Year. 

• But he wanted a change of scenery, and the move isn’t random. He was part of the ProKick Australia system that started in 2007 and helps Aussie athletes prepare for American college life.

• American colleges love AFL players because they can kick very far and high. There were 56 Aussie punters in college football last year.

What are the chances… Appleby makes the NFL? He wouldn’t be the first. There have been plenty in the past, including Ben Graham and the Rocca brothers. Arryn Siposs and Cameron Johnston are both in the league at the moment. Michael Dickson grew up playing Aussie Rules and is one of the best punters in the NFL. 

🏄‍♂️ Record wave has us wiped out 

It’s not really beach weather at the moment, but all of us have spent our summer days getting wiped out by ‘monster’ 2-metre waves. That’s not fun, but how about surfing one that’s more than 10 times bigger.

Golden points: Hang on, how tall? 26.21 metres, to be exact. That’s about 4.5 times taller than a giraffe. And yes, that’s a world record. 

• That record now belongs to German Sebastian Steudtner who is trending on YouTube after he beat the previous best which was 24.38 metres in 2017.

• It turns out Portugal is the place to be if you want to hang 10…or hang 26 in this case. Specifically the town of Nazaré.

• This record has been a long-time coming for Steudtner. This actually happened back in 2020 but it’s taken 18 months for scientists to verify the height of the wave for the people at the Guinness World Records. It’s a really long process.

They said it: “You don’t feel the size. You feel the power. I felt the most power of any wave I’ve surfed at Nazaré.” - We felt scared for Steudtner.

Watch it: You’ll watch this on repeat all day long.

🏉 It's that time of the week!

Don't Forget Your Tips! is a weekly podcast for footy fans who are keen to get an edge in their footy tipping comp. DFYT! will give you some facts, figures and maybe even a few omens that'll help you out with your AFL and NRL footy tips every week of the footy seasons. Episodes are around 12-minutes long and drop 6am every Thursday. Listen on Apple, Spotify and your favourite podcast app. Enjoy!

👀 Quick singles

🎾 It was a mixed day for the Aussies at the French Open with Jason Kubler and Ajla Tomljanović both losing. But Daria Saville is into the 3rd round after she beat 32nd seed Petra Kvitová in straight sets. 

🏏 Royal Challengers Bangalore are one win away from the IPL final after they beat Lucknow this morning. Rajat Patidar smashed an unbeaten century before Aussie Josh Hazlewood took 3 wickets to seal the 14-run win. 

⚽ It must be time for Sam Kerr to get a bigger trophy cabinet. The Chelsea star was named Women’s Super League Player of the Year yesterday and also took out Goal of the Year. 

🏈 There's a chance we could see Colin Kaepernick back in the NFL for the first time since 2016. He is working out with the Las Vegas Raiders later today, something he hasn't done with any team since he was exiled from the league for protesting racial injustice. 

🏀 MVP Nikola Jokić was the headline act in the All-NBA first team that was announced yesterday. The group is basically the best 5 in their position throughout the season and included Jayson Tatum and Luka Dončić who are still in the playoffs. 

🏉 Local footy fans in WA could be in for a treat with Nat Fyfe a chance to play in the WAFL. The Fremantle Dockers star hasn’t played this season because of injury and he could be eased back this weekend in what would be his first WAFL game in 12 years.

🏏 There were ducks galore in Bangladesh's 1st innings against Sri Lanka in the 2nd Test. But that didn’t stop them from scoring the highest ever Test total with 6 or more players getting out for 0 thanks to centuries from Mushfiqur Rahim and Litton Das that helped them post 365. 

🙃 Left of field...

Manchester United fans have spent all season being sledged by their mates. Now, with the season over, they’ve copped it from the national broadcaster. Ouch.

Golden points: People watching the BBC yesterday got a surprise during one of the sports updates when the ticker at the bottom of the screen said “Manchester United are rubbish”.

• It’s 2022 so a lot of people got out their phones and posted screenshots on social media.

• Poor United fans. Their team had just had their worst ever season in the English Premier League and they were hoping for some respite over the summer break.

• The BBC quickly issued an apology, putting it down to a technical glitch while someone was writing random things in the ticker. 

They said it: “I had nothing to do with this!!” - BBC presenter and Manchester City fan Clive Myrie secretly loved it.

📽 The highlight reel

Draymond Green somehow managed to defy physics with this shot in the NBA Playoffs. We still don't know how the ball stayed up there.

📸 Photo finish

Olympic medallists Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy are in the Czech Republic and getting ready for their next beach volleyball event as they continue to prepare for the Commonwealth Games.

🏃‍♀️ The finish line

🏆 Today's trivia answer

They won the league 5 times while he was there.