(Photo: Jakarta Gymnastics Organizing Committee)
2. It's down to the semi-finals at the historic Cricket World Cup 🏏
In one of India's final key games of pool play, where a win over New Zealand was needed to clinch their berth into the semis, a record 25,116 fans turned out to support the home team — even after the team and country have been grappling with sexism and trolls, who have argued against the 4x increase in prize money ($13.88 million!) to achieve pay parity with
the men.
And then star Smriti Mandhana scored a record-tying 109 runs to help send India into the semi-finals.
The tournament has been a hit 🚀 with the first 13 games reaching 60 million viewers digitally. Now, this week, it comes down to the big hitter knockout semis & finals.
TODAY (right now): England 🏴 v. S. Africa 🇿🇦
TOMORROW (5:30 a.m. ET): India 🇮🇳 v. Australia 🇦🇺
📺 SUNDAY, NOV. 2: Watch the final on Sunday on WillowTV in the U.S./Canada, on Sky Sports in the UK, and on Amazon Prime in Australia
A quick cricket primer
Eight teams started out in the women's Cricket World Cup. (Next time, there'll be ten teams.)
In World Cup, they play a version called "one-day" or ODI, where games are about 7-8 hours. Traditional cricket, called Test matches, can last up to five days, and the newest version, called T-20, are about three hours.
The goal is to score more runs than the other team. Two batsmen in the center of the field stand at opposite ends of the pitch; they try to hit the ball, which is "bowled" to them by the opposing team's pitcher, and then run back-and-forth between the wickets to score a run (or score by hitting the ball out of the field). The defending team can get them out a number of ways. Most commonly: catching the ball after it's been hit or knocking down a wicket.
After ten outs (or 300 balls), the teams switch. There are only two innings — so the first team sets the target of runs, and the second team either beats that number of doesn't.
There have been just 12 women's World Cups. And Australia or England have won all of them...
🎧 LISTEN: We get all of our cricket questions answered on this week's episode of The Feist — plus a few questions we didn't know we had!
3. How do we prevent doping? And balance it with athletes' rights?
This week, it was announced marathon world record holder Ruth Chepngetich would receive a three-year doping ban. However, she gets to officially hold onto the world record because the positive doping test for hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), a diuretic often used as a masking agent, came after she set the world record in Chicago. 👀
During the investigation, incriminating text messages were also found on her phone and it is likely now leading to a larger investigation.
This past week, it was also announced (in much less headline-grabbing news) that triathlete Imogen Simmonds was cleared of all doping charges after being able to prove the positive sample came from having sex with her boyfriend, who she didn't know was taking a banned muscle-building supplement. 👀 It sounds crazy, but it happened before to a canoeist.
What are we to make of a system in which the incentives to dope are so high for some athletes? The tests so sensitive, with contamination a growing problem for testers? Should we lean into banning as many people as possible, or honor due process?
Can we solve doping? We try on this week's Feist podcast.
📖 READ: "Some Kenyan Runners See Doping as a Path to Glory, and to Basic Sustenance"
|
