#sports news 2020 today

[sweetbans29]

Little Flirt - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: Caitlin and you flirt for way too long (based on THIS request)

Warnings: fluff

Word Count: 3.2k

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Switching up the prompt just a little but I think it will help with the flow.

2020/2021

Life as everyone knew it had flipped. The end of your freshman year in college was not what you had expected in the slightest. It went from being one of the best things you had ever experienced to what felt like nothing. Due to the pandemic, your freshman year was cut short which also meant your first season as a collegiate athlete was also cut short. It was a bummer - to say the least.

So when Fall came around you were excited that your school welcomed back part of the student body. Under very strict guidelines your team was welcomed back and given the green light to begin your sophomore season. Before you got there, everyone was required to quarantine alone for 2 weeks in a nearby hotel before being able to move onto campus. Once you were able to get to campus, they did another quarantine, in groups, as a secondary precaution. It sort of made sense considering the people you were going to be around the most were your team.

Once the month of quarantine was over, you and your team were finally able to hit the gym. It was great to be back with the team and welcome the new freshman. It didn't take them long to warm up to you on the court considering everyone's lack of human interaction had people longing for connection. After the first few weeks, everyone played as if you all had been together for a few months. It began to feel like things had gone back to normal.

When games started you were reminded how not normal the world was. Everyone had to get tested multiple times before playing games which wasn't the weirdest part. The weirdest part was the fact that there was absolutely no one in the stands. Every school you played at tried their best, yours included, but it wasn't the same.

The games were still competitive and a little more physical than you recall. None of it really mattered considering you were just happy to be playing again. All of this leads you to today's game.

It is an away game for your team as you travel to Iowa for the first time of the season to play the Hawkeyes. You weren't a huge fan of away games, all thanks to the pandemic but your love for the sport kept you going.

Both teams are warming up and you begin to scout the other team. There are a few girls you take note of - one of them being their center. Another is a smaller girl, sort of scrawny frame but can shoot from anywhere - anywhere being multiple feet behind the arc. You know you are going to have to switch up the way you play defense but aren't too worried.

You look at her again and begin to really study her features. After a few minutes of watching her, it clicks. It's Caitlin Clark. You've heard of her. One of the things you always enjoyed doing was scouting out the next group of freshmen coming up and she was one of them. There were a few girls coming into the college game that caught your eye, Caitlin being one of them. You were excited to play against her.

When the game started, you saw yourself being challenged. You had the task of guarding the freshman and she was a challenge. She was everything the scouting report and media said she would be on the court. Her range was amazing, she never stopped taking shots and she had a solid pull-up game.

Throughout the game, the two of you kept going back and forth on who would win the little matchups. You could see the competitiveness in her eye and would send her smirks to get her riled up even more any time the play went your way. She would make it a point to come and mutter some sort of trash talk to you when the possession went her way. It became a little game within the game.

The game ended and your first matchup between the new star went your way. Even with the loss of her team, Caitlin dropped 21 points which you found impressive. After the game, you made sure to pull her aside.

"Hey, Clark!" You called after her as she was heading back to the locker room. She turns back and you can tell she is pissed but the loss - you can only assume you are the last person she wants to see right now. When she sees it is you, her hard exterior breaks and she gives a shy smile.

"Hey," she says and stops walking making you walk to her.

"You are going to be a little pain in my butt these next few years, aren't you," you say teasing her. Her smile grows and you can see a little blush creep into her cheeks. You were only a year older than her, but could tell you had an effect on her.

She just shrugs not really knowing what to say.

"I just wanted to come over and let you know that you are going to do great things. I am sure people say that to you all the time, but as someone who has now played against you - I hope there is a day when we can be on the same side of the court instead of opposite ones," you say and give her a genuine smile. "I look forward to our next matchup."

Your hand grazes her arm and gives her elbow a little squeeze. You give her one last smile and begin to head back to your team.

"Next time, I won't go as easy on you," she calls out to you. It makes you smile but you don't turn around to let it show, instead, you throw up your hand, flashing her your middle finger. You hear her laugh and you shake your head.

You know she means it, the next time you match up she won't go easy on you but it goes both ways. Now you have both seen how the other plays and know the next few years are going to be fun.

You played Caitlin once more during this season and her team took the win. The game was exactly how you expected it to be - she trashed talked a little more than you had expected which you did your best to return but your team losing put you in a slump. At the end of the game when your teams high-fived after she leaned in and whispered 'Now we're even'. Let's just say her words fueled you.

2021/2022

When you looked at the schedule for the year, you noticed that you would be playing the Hawkeyes three times. You have three chances to show her you are not one to just let her win.

Your first meeting was a fun one. They started letting some people into the crowd and that only fueled your little rivalry with Caitlin.

It really wasn't a rivalry but anyone looking in could see that the two of you talked more than any other competitors. The first two meetings between the two of you were back to back which was new to you and your team. Typically you would play teams a little further apart but this matchup was different.

Caitlin's team took the first win and she would not stop talking to you about how she was on top and would always be on top. You on the other hand were determined to never lose a game to her again.

Your little conversations on the court started to be noticed by both of your teams, not that either of you cared. You both had the stats to prove that you belonged in the starting line-up and on the court.

Your second meeting got a little heated as you tried to get into Caitlin's head a little more.

"Your hands have found my hips a lot tonight Clark," you say as the two of you are standing in the backcourt as one of her teammates is taking her free throws.

"It's called defense," she says like it is a known fact. You step a little closer to her to make sure she is the only one to hear your next comment.

"If they go any lower, we may have a different problem on our hands," you say just above a whisper and watch her reaction. All the color drains from her face and you nudge her. "I'm kidding, babe."

You can see the tenseness in her shoulders release as the game continues. Your team came out with the win and just like that you were tied again.

Your last meeting for the year was the toughest yet. Your two teams battled valiantly, taking the game to overtime. By the end of it, you were beat. Before you headed into the locker to felt someone grab your arm. Turning you see Caitlin.

"Clark," you say surprised. You give her your best smile which isn't much considering how tired you were.

"I just wanted to come over and say good game," she says and you can tell she is a little nervous. If you weren't so tired you would keep the conversation up but you were exhausted. So instead, you pulled her into you and enveloped her into a hug. She melts into you and the two of you stand there hugging for a few minutes.

Your eyes are closed as you hug her. It wasn't until you felt her arms wrap around you did you realize how much you missed physical touch.

Caitlin on the other hand had been dreaming of this since your first meeting. She stood there in your arms and knew for sure she wanted to be in them forever. She would never tell you that of course and decided to keep her little crush to herself.

You give her one last squeeze and pull away.

"The way you had me running up and down the court," you say with a laugh. "You have me needing a week to recover, babe," you say and give her a little nudge.

"Me? You literally pushed your team to get you into overtime," she says and pushes you back.

"Ya, whatever. I wasn't going to let you win again," you say.

The two of you parted ways for the night. As you went to bed that night you decided to DM Cait.

[You: Looks like you are no longer on top ;)]

2022/2023

It is your senior year and you decided to declare for the WNBA. It had been time, you felt like you had a good college run and were ready for more. Your team was the first to know you were declaring and then you decided to tell Caitlin. The two of you had talked a lot more and would often DM at least once or twice a week so it only felt right to let her know.

Caitlin fit into your routine really seamlessly. You credit the fact that the girl was always on her phone but really it was that her care and love for the game matched yours. The two of you went from being 'rivals' to friends and you would now consider her one of your best friends.

It's your draft night and you were likely to be the first pick of the 2023 WNBA draft. Even in that, you were extremely nervous. The night goes by in the blink of an eye. You were drafted to the Indiana Fever and could not be more excited. When you were lying down in your bed that night, you finally had a chance to look at your phone. The first thing you looked for was a message from Cait.

[Caitlin: Congrats on going first in the draft, can't wait to watch you 🤍]

[You: Thanks Clark - you'll have to hold down the college scene until you hit the draft]

You decide to message her your number, which in your opinion is long overdue but felt like it would lead to something more than it should be as rivals during your college years.

She immediately messages you.

[Clark: Can't get rid of me now]

[You: Oh I have my ways if I really wanted to]

[Clark: Hey! Just because you are a professional now doesn't mean you need to be mean]

[You: Don't give me a reason and we’ll be okay]

2023/2024

Your rookie season is a hard one - the transition is one that everyone says is going to be difficult but experiencing it is a whole other thing. You were tested physically and mentally and really leaned on your team and those around you.

Caitlin would always check in and give you her little trash-talking notes via text whenever you played. They would always end with some sort of praise but it wouldn't be Cait if it didn't have some sort of attitude.

Caitlin was the first to call you when you got named Rookie of the Year. She had slowly become your biggest fan and sent over a giant bouquet of flowers the second it was announced.

You would also check in on her during her season as she got closer and closer to breaking the NCAA women's scoring record. You even made it to the game when she broke the all-time NCAA scoring record. When one of the TV stations found out you were there, they asked if you would do a little interview.

"What brings you all the way to Iowa?" The interviewer asks.

"Well, that's simple. Clark," you say with a beaming smile.

"Do you know her well?"

"I would say so, she can be a pain in my butt but she's fun. Great player and her IQ for the game is one that is just memorizing to watch." You say.

"She hasn't explicitly declared for the draft but if she did, there would be a high chance of her getting drafted first similar to you which would mean she would be heading to Indiana. How do you feel about the potential of playing on the same team?"

"Well that is quite the hypothetical," you say with a laugh. "But I think it would be really neat to play on the same team as her, we have always played against each other and I think we would be pretty dominant on the court together."

Caitlin broke the scoring record that night. She was on Cloud 9 after the game. More so over the win than the record, it was cool but that wasn't the reason she played.

You had made your way down to the court to find her. When you did you ran up behind her and wrapped your arms around her waist. It took her s second to realize it was you and when she did, she started jumping up and down. When you released her, she flipped around and pulled you into a bone-crushing hug.

"Way to go Clark," you whisper in her ear. "Proud of you babe"

She doesn't let you go and you feel like people are starting to suspect something. You bring your hands down to pinch her sides and she jolts back with the cutest disappointed look on her face.

"Why?" She asks and you laugh.

"Looks like there are people who want to talk to you," you nod your head over to the people waiting to get a picture or interview with her.

"Are you staying in town?" She asks hopeful but you shake your head no.

"Don't worry, I'll see you soon," you say and pull her in for one last hug.

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she whispers in your ear. She nuzzles her face into your neck and inhales your scent. You feel the tickle of her on your neck and give her one last squeeze.

You follow her and her team as they head in March Madness. You go to support her again when her team makes it to the Final Four. It is a nail-bitter the whole time but Iowa is headed to the championship.

At the end of the game, you make your way around to some of the players. You go to all the players you know, ending with Caitlin. You tell her how excited you are that she declared for the draft and make a joke about soon being teammates.

Before you know it you are dressed and on the orange carpet of the WNBA draft.

You being the no.1 draft pick the previous year and Rookie of the Year, were tasked with interviewing all the girls that came down the walkway.

The one person you were looking forward to seeing had finally gotten to you.

"Clark!" You yell as you welcome her and give her a hug. You make sure it is a quick one but Caitlin has something different in mind as she does not let you go. It didn't matter too much considering you had already seen the edits of the two of you but you were supposed to be the professional. You pinch her side, like you typically do to get her to release you and she complies.

"Okay, how do you feel about draft night?" You ask her.

"It is all sort of surreal. Like I can't believe I am here," she says with a beautiful smile.

"Well you are here and you are looking better than ever. Prada? Girl you are stunning," you say and play with the bottom of her jacket. She looked so good but you made a mental note to stare for too long. She laughs and puts her hand on your arm.

"Ya, the first Prada dressed someone in the W, it's pretty cool," she says and takes note of you checking her out.

"Well I will let you keep going but it is really great to see you and who knows, there is a potential we will be playing together soon," you say.

"Thank you," she says and leans in to give you one last hug.

Caitlin was drafted first of course and you were beyond excited. After she was interviewed and pulled back for some photos you found her and gave her a huge.

"We're teammates," you practically yell in her ear. She laughs.

"You are going to blow out my eardrum," she says but doesn't break the hug.

"You're being overdramatic, Clark. I am just excited," you say.

You pull her to the side once she is done with the shoot.

"So now that you'll be coming to Indy, you gonna let me take you out on a date?" You ask and she begins to smile and blush like a little schoolgirl.

She nods.

"4 years is a long time to make a girl wait, Clark," you say with a smile of your own.

"Ugh, why do you always call me Clark," she says as if it annoys her and hides her face in your neck.

"Well because it annoys you of course," you say and rub her back.

She mumbles something in your neck.

"What was that babe?" You ask.

"About time you asked me out," she says and you push her back in disbelief.

"Oh, now this is on me now? That's funny Clark," you say and she wants you to hold her again. You keep her at arm's length.

"Hug me," she says, borderline whines.

"Not until that date," you say and slowly begin to back up. She is now the one looking at you in disbelief. "See you at training camp!"

AN: This is a cute one. Let me know what you think! And as always, thank you for your love and support 🤍

[lovingyoulovinme]

✶ charles leclerc x reader ✶

2019

renaultf1team

Liked by danielricciardo and 96,486 others

renaultf1team It’s the super nice and ultra cool @yourinstagram! We 💛 her!

View all 1,884 comments

yourinstagram thank you for having me! 🐥💖

username who even is this?

⤥ username y/n y/l/n she's a model but she's been into f1 for awhile

danielricciardo Sorry for not winning for you like i promised @yourinstagram

⤥ yourinstagram 🤣🤣

username they finally invited a celebrity that knows about the sport

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scuderiaferrari How can we get her in our garage?

⤥ renaultf1team She's ours sorry!

yourinstagram 🤭

username ferrari begging her to come to their garage 😭 need her and charles to meet tho

July 14, 2019

charles_leclerc

Liked by yourinstagram and 463,746 others

charles_leclerc P1 babyyyyyy ! Thank you to the team and to everyone that showed support this weekend.

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scuderiaferrari 🥇❤️

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yourinstagram proud!!!! 🐰🤍

⤥ charles_leclerc 😘

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username YOU DESERVE IT

pierregasly 😮‍💨

username first season with ferrari and he's been killing it what a legend

username 🔥🔥🔥

September 28, 2019

2020

yourinstagram

Liked by charles_leclerc and 176,836 others

yourinstagram new years party with all my favorite people 🥵🥂❤️

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username happy new years!!!

username the drink on her head 😭 shes so crazy i love her 🤪

username LECLERC?????

⤥ username one of her favorite people....

danielricciardo Thanks for the invite!

⤥ yourinstagram stfu u literally told me you couldn't come

danielricciardo 😣

username i would do insane things to get invite to a party thrown by y/n

username streets (mutual of mine whose friend went to the party) saying y/n and charles kissed at midnight

⤥ username anybody can lie and say they were there 😭 hell i could go on twitter and start a full thread abt it doesn't mean it would be true

charles_leclerc 💃🕺

⤥ yourinstagram moves so good they swept me off my feet

username 👀👀👀

January 2, 2020

leclercupdates

7,963 likes

leclercupdates clip of charles' from his twitch stream today 🫣

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username i cant believe this is how we get confirmation they're dating 😭

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yourinstagram idiot

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April 6, 2020

yourinstagram

Liked by landonorris and 397,892 others

yourinstagram note to self: stop forgetting your keys (and tape your boyfriend's mouth shut)

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username THE SECOND PIC AHHHHH

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April 8, 2020

2021

charles_leclerc

Liked by pierregasly and 784,478 others

charles_leclerc Happy days before the start of the season

View all 4,698 comments

yourinstagram put a shirt on

username best couple in the world

lilymhe Who is the beautiful girl in the third slide?

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yourinstagram that could change

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pierregasly No photo of me?

⤥ username pierre third-wheeling them 24/7 😭

username her smile!!! 👼👼👼

February 6, 2021

deuxmoi via instagram

September 20, 2021

2022

yourinstagram

Liked by danielricciardo and 248,736 others

yourinstagram this must be the place 💒

View all 3,831 comments

username THE ENGAGEMENT RUMORS LOOKING REAL TRUE RN

danielricciardo 🤭

username wedding venue???? 🥹

charles_leclerc Je veux passer ma vie avec toi ❤️ (I want to spend my life with you)

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username THEY ARE SOOOOOOO

username third slide is so precious :(

pierregasly Can i be the **** ***

⤥ username BEST MAN???

arthur_leclerc No

lorenzotl No

username obsessed with the way they never confirmed the engagement rumors but are doing nothing to stop them

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username it feels like just yesterday charles was accidentally confirming their relationship on twitch and now they're getting MARRIED

January 18, 2022

charles_leclerc

Liked by yourinstagram and 1,475,863 others

charles_leclerc Best day of my life forever. 👰‍♀️🤵🖤

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username CRYING SO BADDDDDD

yourinstagram 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I LOVE U

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pierregasly 🥂😛❤️‍🔥

username they got married on the 17th...exactly 3 years after they met 🥺

arthur_leclerc So happy ❤️

July 20, 2022

[russilton]

Yuki needs to be held to account for that slur swiftly and immediately, as an autistic person I feel sick and more than a little heartbroken to see it come from a man who Should👏Know👏Better👏

HOWEVER- people bringing attention to this, keep in the front of your mind are you treating Yuki the same way you treat Max?

For those New to the sport Max called another driver a M****l R***** on radio in a session in 2020. It was the second time he’d used the slur, and despite calls for him to apologise he refused to do so. In fact many people defended him and attributed it to him just being Dutch. Trust me, the disabled people around you fucking notice, and it hurts.

Do not let racial bias make you treat Yuki today with more severity than you treated Max. Hold them both to account till these privileged assholes learn better.

[bl00dst41ned]

*.·:·.✦ timeless redamancy ✦.·:·.*

pairing: kóstas tsimíkas x female reader

summary: in which you and kóstas' relationship evolve through each yearly interview

author's note: greek scouser been looking a little too yummy lately. had this idea from a kóstas fic by @curiousthyme but also trent’s interview for channel 4 sport and the pregnant presenter

word count: 1072

2021

“Hello everyone, welcome to a new interview. Today, we are joined by Liverpool’s Kóstas Tsimíkas as he recently celebrated his first year at the English club. Hello Kóstas”

He responded with a quick “hello” as you continued the interview’s introduction. Out of the corner of your eye, you could feel his eyes set on the side of your face. His strong gaze unsettled you as you tried your best to keep your composure in front of the lens.

“So, back in 2020, you joined LFC. How do you feel about this first year at this new club?”

“Well, it has been a great start. I’m enjoying myself with the team. We work hard everyday and try to improve ourselves each day so…it’s good”

With each question, Kóstas didn’t look away from your eyes. Throughout all the years, he would always lose himself in your iris, drowning in your pupils. Every part of you fascinated him and he showed it, regularly gazing.

“Moving on, I’ll go back to your first year in Liverpool and I’ll get a bit more personal. How did you get used to the city and overall new life?”

“Well…it was hard at first but now it’s okay” You watched as he thought of what to say. “My family is a bit far but I still have people here. My teammates, my girlfriend so I’m good”

It was hard to keep a straight face as he mentioned you. He never talked about your relationship but he thought it was a good opportunity to destabilise you.

“Oh, your girlfriend ? Nice”

You both shared a smile before going back to the interview.

2022

“Hello everyone, welcome to a new interview” You smiled at the camera, sitted on the comfortable chair, legs crossed “Today, we are joined by Liverpool’s Kóstas Tsimíkas. Hi Kóstas, how are you?”

“I’m good, thank you, how are you ?”

“I’m great, thanks for asking. So first, I’d like to know how life has been recently ?”

No matter how much professionalism you gained within the year, interviewing your boyfriend was still the hardest challenge you had to face. You still felt the butterflies in your stomach just from him looking at you in your eyes. Kóstas knew about it and loved teasing you in public, trying to make you break character at each interview. Just like he did now.

“I had to face hard moments, but life has been good. I’m still enjoying myself at the club and yeah…I love it here”

As you asked your questions, your right hand played with your ring finger where sat a shiny diamond ring. You twisted it from time to time, stopping once you noticed your producer’s widened eyes, wordlessly warning you about your unnecessary movements.

“How do you try to improve your performances each game ?”

“By training, keeping a good diet and a healthy lifestyle in general. At the club, we always try to do better than the game before so the team’s mentality influences my determination”

You opened your mouth to ask your next question only to be interrupted by your partner.

“I see you got a ring, you’re married ?” Kóstas asked, a smirk on his face.

You blushed, struggling to find the words to answer.

“Yes I just got engaged. I didn’t know you were so observant”

“Yeah, I proposed to my girlfriend recently so my mind is set in that mood”

You quickly moved on since you knew any more words on it would distract you from your job.

You silently mouthed as he answered the question you just asked: “You’re the worst”.

2023

“Hello everyone, welcome to a new interview” You smiled at the camera, a hand on your hard 7 month-old pregnant belly, body slightly inclined on the armrest for comfort. “Today, we are joined by Liverpool’s Kóstas Tsimíkas as he signed a new deal with the club, hi Kóstas, how are you?”

It had become a known fact to the public that you were his wife but you loved to play it off during interviews and never be straightforward.

“I’m good, I see that you're expecting, congratulations. How are you?”

“It’s a tad tiring but my husband’s always there to help if I need” You winked at him discreetly as his smile got wider.

“I’m sure, he’s a great man” He added, making you chuckle at the way he praised himself.

“So tell me, what made you want to extend your contract?”

“I just feel comfortable here at the club and in the city. I don’t think there’s another club that’ll make me feel like this right now. And with things happening in my life, I’d rather be somewhere I’m settled”

He eyed your stomach while answering, seeing it move as your baby pushed it. He tried his hardest not to be disturbed and keep his focus on your questions. 

The two of you had gone through a lot. You grew to go from a simple relationship to being married. And after all of these years, Kóstas always seemed to be amazed by you. 

Your beauty had never changed 

“So, last time we saw each other, you had gotten engaged, now you’re a married man, how does it feel ?” As you read the question, you turned to the producer behind the camera who wrote the question.

“It’s the best feeling ever” Kóstas held the biggest grin on his face as he looked into your eyes. “I have the greatest wife ever so taking this step was evident, you know. She’s my biggest supporter, always there for me so I’m glad to be able to call her my wife”

Your heart fluttered at his words. He rarely talked about you publicly but each time he did, he never forgot to praise you. And it made you blush each time. But today was different as your hormones were all over the place. And as much as you tried not to cry, tears brimmed up in your eyes.

“Oh my god, that is too cute” You waved your hand to dry the tears away.

“I know I’m the luckiest man ever”

You calmed down before going back to your questions and succeeding to finish it without another emotional excess.

“Well, we’ve come to an end with this encounter. Thank you to you guys for watching and a big thank you to you, Kóstas for your time”

“Your welcome, Mrs Tsimíkas” He winked at you, earning a laugh from you.

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[alexbkrieger13]

Double vision

Partners on and off the pitch, Bayern pair Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson have firm convictions on all the big topics facing women’s football in an era of exciting growth and mounting pressures

In a room at Bayern München’s training ground, Magdalena Eriksson and Pernille Harder are talking bicycles. One of their favourite things about Munich, the place they have both called home since making the switch last summer from Chelsea to Bayern, is the ease of travel for cyclists in the Bavarian capital.

Eriksson: “Now we live quite centrally so we can use our bikes to get anywhere.”

Harder: “It is a bit easier to bike here in Munich than in London.”

Magda: “We even took our bikes to Oktoberfest once.” 

Pernille (laughs): “We were biking straight!”

This is the beauty of an interview with the pair (even one conducted over Zoom, as this one is): you raise a subject and they bounce it around between them, their insights and reflections interspersed with lighter moments and laughter. And, as arguably their sport’s highest-profile couple – Harder is a two-time UEFA Women’s Player of the Year, Eriksson a Sweden stalwart – they have plenty to say. 

Both care deeply about matters on and off the football pitch. They are members of UEFA’s Football Board (of which more later), they support the Common Goal project – pledging one per cent of their salaries to support football charities – and on top of that they are advocates for the LGBTQ+ community. 

But, first, back to finding their feet in Munich, where the duo bring serious know-how to a Bayern side with big ambitions, despite an early exit from the Champions League in January. In Harder’s case, the Denmark forward knew German football already from her three years with Wolfsburg between 2017 and 2020. For Eriksson, after six seasons in England with Chelsea, this is an entirely new experience – which is exactly what she was hoping for.

“I think that’s how we are as people,” says the former Blues captain. “A reason why we moved is I am really curious about a new culture and a new environment.” From the sounds of things, that decision is paying off too. Away from the pitch, she is enamoured of the local coffee shops; on it, she has been impressed by the way “a lot of the girls take responsibility around the dressing room and with how things should work around the team. There’s quite a clear structure of different responsibilities, and the players take ownership of that. That’s something more like how it was in Sweden, and not at all in England. It makes us take responsibility and it’s something I appreciate.”

As for Harder, she elaborates on the unique culture of Germany’s biggest football club – one which attempts to marry sustained success with humility. “It really is a club where you have to work hard, be humble but also know your worth,” she says. “It’s a bit weird. There is no arrogance: we know we’re good, we know we are a big club, but we know we also have to work hard. There’s a lot of respect for each other, and it’s not only in our team. When we go to the campus and meet the academy boys or some of the other staff, you have the respect. You treat others the way you want to be treated, and that’s a really good value which aligns with my values.”

Now both in their thirties – Eriksson is 30, Harder 31 – they knew the women’s game before its lift-off moments of recent years. Thus, they bring a helpful sense of perspective to any discussion of its development, and how it might evolve in years to come.

If female footballers today have opportunities beyond the dreams of previous generations, they face pressures unknown by their predecessors too, as Eriksson explains. “I think there are two sides to every story. Maybe, when we grew up, there wasn’t that much pressure, but with a growing platform [and how] the women’s game is growing, there is also growing pressure. The fans are growing, social media is growing, so there are two sides to it.

“We can really help the younger generation of today to deal with that kind of pressure, which you have to be able to manage as a footballer,” she adds. “You have to find what you need to focus on and what you should really just shut off and not focus on. You need to find the people that you talk football with and the people’s opinions you shouldn’t care about.”

Harder picks up the thread: “When we were younger, there was only one focus and that was football – to get better and to win. It was just football: that was the thing we played for. Now, there is so much more and, with social media, it’s also about a lot of individual awards, individual recognition, when the focus should be on the team. And I think it’s easier to be distracted [from] having that right focus. That’s something important to think about…”

“And to remind yourself about on a daily basis,” Eriksson cuts in. “And also to spread that within the team – that it’s a team sport and the team wins, the team loses, the team scores, the team concedes. All of those things.”

“Except when Magda scores!” adds Harder with a laugh, teasing her partner over a goal she scored in the week of this interview.

Jokes aside, the pair obviously think a lot about the game, which makes them natural choices to sit on UEFA’s Football Board, the body set up last year to draw on the knowledge of current and former players and elite coaches in the shaping of women’s football. For Eriksson, it’s “inspiring to know you get a direct line to some really big decision-makers”, and the welfare of players – “the football calendar and making football sustainable” – is something both women are keen to highlight.

“We all want a long career, but sometimes if you have to play all the time and have no break, that will shorten it,” says Harder. “Often, we have tournaments in the middle of summer or late summer, so we have four or five weeks before the tournament for our summer holiday, but then we don’t really have that time off because you train to prepare for the World Cup. And then, after the World Cup, [Magda] had ten days and I had two weeks off, and then you just go straight back into it. So, you have to put the tournaments earlier so you have at least four weeks after when you can really, medically, relax and be ready for the new season. Everything else is just too hard mentally and for the body.”

“It was the same last year with the EURO and the amount of injuries we saw after,” says Eriksson, who, ironically, just days after our interview, suffered a metatarsal fracture in her left foot. “Again, [it was] a couple of weeks off for a few, even less for others, and then you are straight back into a high-performance environment where you immediately have to play games. Finding a balance in the calendar where you get the breaks at the right time and don’t have too many games in short spaces of time is the most important thing.

“The fact we are starting now to do research on women’s bodies and women’s players is the first step. With the way we train, the way we train conditioning, everything is based on research on men’s football players, men’s athletes. We don’t know if it’s the same for us. Should we train more or less, or in a different way?”

From Harder comes further food for thought. “When you think about it, we use the same football as the men. It isn’t that I want to change it, but it’s also the same size of pitch and we don’t have the same body; we don’t have the same strength in the muscles. I don’t know the impact from every time I shoot or make a pass, if that’s actually a bigger impact on my muscles than it is on a man’s. That’s something I think it would be quite interesting to look at. I don’t know if it’s something we want to change and have a lighter ball. Maybe it’s just small percentages of how heavy the ball is that could change it.”

“There is rivalry in women’s football, but respect, love and joy always come first”

It’s fascinating to hear this to and fro on the physical side of the game they love, and it’s not the only challenge they see. We talk too about misogyny and what Harder describes as “a mindset of some people who don’t want to change [and see] that women can also play football, women can also be commentating on men’s football, that they also have knowledge about football. They have their mindset and their values about it and it’s really difficult for them to change.”

What is not in question is that women’s football has taken giant steps already in terms of status and recognition. As the commercial opportunities grow, however, neither woman wants to lose the things that make it different from the men’s game. Eriksson recalls the celebratory atmosphere in Australia and New Zealand during the last Women’s World Cup; she cites too the friendly fan dynamics in the club realm.

“We are coming off the back of a fantastic World Cup where there were only positive emotions connected to the games. Of course, some teams win, some teams lose – that’s part of football – but the way the tournament was held and the fan culture, that was amazing. So much positivity, so much joy, and that’s everywhere in women’s football fan culture right at the moment. That is what we want to keep. In women’s football, that rivalry is still there, but the respect, the love and the joy is always what comes first.”

The last word comes from Harder, ever the finisher. “It won’t be easy to keep it like that, but that at least is the aim.” 

[onlyonetifosi]

The shadow

inspired by the song "Someone to you" by Banners

The sun was shining brightly as the sound of roaring engines filled the air. The racetrack was bustling with excitement and adrenaline, and the atmosphere was electric. The Leclerc family was gathered in the stands, eagerly waiting for Charles to make his way onto the track. As the cars began to line up, the Leclerc family's excitement reached fever pitch. But amidst all the cheers and screams, one person was feeling left out - Sylvie Caroline Leclerc.

Ever since they were children, she had lived in Charles' shadow, they were born just minutes apart, but it seemed like Charles was always one step ahead of her. As the younger twin, they had always felt like they were playing second fiddle to her brother. Charles was always the one who excelled in sports, the one who got all the attention, and the one who everyone looked up to. And while the reader was happy for their brother's success, they couldn't help but feel like they were being left behind.

But today was different. Today, the reader was determined to prove to their family and the world that they were just as talented and deserving of success as Charles. Today, they were embarking on their own racing career, and they were determined to make a name for themselves.

As the race began, the reader watched intently, analyzing Charles' every move. They knew that they had a lot to learn, but they were ready for the challenge. As the laps ticked by, the reader couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. They were doing it. They were living their dream.

But as the race drew to a close, Sylvie's excitement was tempered by the realization that they would always be compared to Charles. No matter how hard they worked, no matter how much they accomplished, they would always be seen as the "other" Leclerc twin. It was a harsh truth, but it was one that the reader knew they would have to accept if they wanted to succeed.

As the Leclerc family gathered to congratulate Charles on his win, she hung back, feeling a mix of jealousy and pride. They knew that Charles deserved all the accolades he was receiving, but they couldn't help but feel like they were being left behind. They wanted to be celebrated too, to have their own moment in the spotlight.

The next few weeks were a blur of training, practice, and races. Sylvie was determined to prove themselves, and they threw themselves into their new career with all their heart and soul. But as they gained more experience, they realized that racing wasn't just about skill and talent - it was also about luck, timing, and opportunity. And while the reader was confident in their abilities, they couldn't help but feel like they were always one step behind.

As the 2020 F1 season drew to a close, the reader found themselves in the middle of a fierce competition. They were neck and neck with another driver, and they knew that every race could make or break their career. The pressure was intense, and the reader was feeling the weight of their family's expectations on their shoulders.

One day, after a particularly grueling practice session, she found herself alone with her mother. They had always been close, and she knew that they could confide in her. "Maman," they began tentatively, "I feel like I'm always living in Charles' shadow. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shake off the feeling that I'm just the 'other' Leclerc twin."

Their maman wasn't happy either. She could see how much the competition was affecting her children, and she didn't like it. She tried to talk to Charles and Sylvie, to get them to see that they were on the same team, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

Their mother's expression softened, and she put a comforting hand on their shoulder. "Mon petit chou," she said in her soft French accent. "You are not just the 'other' Leclerc twin. You are your own person, with your own strengths and talents. It's natural to feel overshadowed by your brother succes, but you are as talented as him" she said hugging her not-so little girl.

"Merci maman" Sylvie thanks her while the two woman hug.

Later in the day, something unexpected happened. One of the other drivers, Sebastian Vettel, came up to Sylvie after being told by a little bird what she was feeling (little did she know her maman had told him) "You're a talented driver," he said, "and you deserve to be here just as much as anyone else."

Those words meant everything to Sylvie. For the first time, she felt seen and recognized as an individual, rather than just Charles's sister. She realized that she didn't have to prove anything to anyone but herself.

Sylvie found herself in the paddock, waiting to meet some of the other drivers. She was nervous - she had always been a bit of a wallflower, and she wasn't sure how she was going to fit in with the other drivers.

But as she stood there, waiting, she heard someone call her name. She turned around, and saw Daniel Ricciardo waving at her.

"Hey, Sylvie!" he said, jogging over to her. "I saw you race in karting a few years ago, you were really impressive."

Sylvie blushed. "Thanks," she said. "I'm trying to make a name for myself now."

"Well, you're definitely on the right track," Daniel said. "Listen, if you ever need any advice or anything, just let me know. We're all in this together, you know?"

Sylvie smiled, feeling a surge of confidence. Maybe she wasn't alone in this after all.

As the season went on, Sylvie found herself forming friendships with some of the other drivers. They would hang out in the paddock, swapping stories and advice, and Sylvie felt like she was finally starting to find her place in the racing world.

But back at home, things were still tense between her and Charles. They argued constantly, each trying to prove that they were the better racer. It seemed like there was no end in sight.

One day, their maman called them both into the kitchen. "Sit down," she said firmly. "We need to talk."

Charles and Sylvie exchanged wary glances, wondering what was coming next.

"I know that you two are very competitive with each other," their maman said. "But you need to understand that there's more to life than just racing. You're family, and you need to support each other, no matter what."

" Can I start?" Sylvie starts "Why does it always have to be about you, Charles? Can't you see that I'm just as good as you are?"

Charles shook his head in frustration. "You're just jealous because I'm the one who's had success in racing. If you were really as talented as you say you are, you would have proven it by now."

Their argument quickly escalated, and before long, the entire family was involved. Sylvie's maman tried to mediate, but both Sylvie and Charles were too stubborn to back down.

During one race, Sylvie's car spun out of control and crashed into the wall. She was shaken but unhurt, and as she climbed out of the wreckage, she saw Charles running towards her. He pulled her into a tight hug, and for a moment, everything else faded away.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear. "I've been a terrible brother to you. I'm so proud of you, Sylvie. You're amazing, and you deserve to be here just as much as I do, I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you," Charles said. "I know I've been a bit of a jerk."

Tears streamed down Sylvie's face as she hugged him back. "I'm sorry too," she said. "I never wanted to compete with you, Charles. I just wanted to prove to myself and to everyone else that I could do this too" She said, feeling a weight lifted off her shoulders.

They spent the rest of the season racing against each other, but this time, they did it with mutual respect and support. They cheered each other on, offered advice and encouragement, and celebrated each other's successes.

Charles and Sylvie found themselves cheering each other on, despite their own individual successes and failures. They realized that they were stronger together

Other drivers on the circuit noticed the change in their dynamic, and they were impressed by the way the Leclerc siblings had overcome their differences. They approached Sylvie and Charles, offering words of praise and encouragement.

"You guys are something special," said Lewis Hamilton, the reigning world champion. "I've never seen siblings work together like this. You're an inspiration to us all."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alicia Sadowski, Isabella Corrao, Helena Hind, and Jane Lee at MMFA:

The extreme policy positions and toxicity of Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation’s initiative to provide policy and personnel to the next Trump administration — have prompted leader Paul Dans to resign from his position at the Heritage Foundation and former President Donald Trump to publicly disavow the effort. (Heritage's president has said that Trump trying to create distance from Project 2025 is a “political tactical decision” and that Heritage still has a “very good” relationship with Trump and his team.) Fox News has maintained that Trump was not aware of Project 2025 and attempted to distance Trump from its extremism. But the pro-Trump network’s personalities have repeatedly signaled support for many of Project 2025’s proposals.

[...]

Personnel and staffing

Project 2025’s plan to staff the next Trump administration involves potentially firing thousands of nonpartisan federal civil service workers — what MAGA figures usually refer to as the “deep state” — and replacing them with Trump loyalists. This would be accomplished by reinstituting a Trump-era executive order called “Schedule F,” which would reclassify civil service employees as “at-will” workers who can be more easily fired. And Project 2025 has already created a training academy to instruct potential staffers on “rolling back destructive policy and advancing conservative ideas in the federal government.” 

Christian nationalism

In the foreword to the effort’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts warned that “the Left is threatening the tax-exempt status of churches and charities that reject woke progressivism,” adding that “they will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs with the same totalitarian intent.”

To rectify this threat, Project 2025 offers, as Salon has written, a “blueprint for the Christian nationalist vision for America.”In the chapter on the Department of Labor, former Trump official Jonathan Berry cited the “Judeo-Christian tradition” to justify calling for overtime pay on the Sabbath.

In the chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services, former Trump HHS official Roger Severino criticized the Centers for Disease Control for issuing health guidelines warning against congregating at churches during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He asked, “How much risk mitigation is worth the price of shutting down churches on the holiest day of the Christian calendar and far beyond as happened in 2020? What is the proper balance of lives saved versus souls saved?”He also argued that future conservative administrations should “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”

LGBTQ rights

Project 2025 will have a major impact on LGBTQ students and teachers in public school systems.

The Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke wrote that the next conservative administration should “take particular note of how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today” and warned of a supposed intent to “drive a wedge between parents and children.”Project 2025 claims that concepts such as gender ideology “poison our children, who are being taught … to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women.”

Burke also called for legislation to force “K–12 districts under federal jurisdiction” to prohibit employees from using a name or pronoun different from the information listed on a student’s birth certificate without written guardian permission.

Project 2025 additionally targets trans athletes in schools, citing “bureaucrats at the Department of Justice” who “force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists.” The plan says the federal government should instead “define ‘sex’ under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth.”Additionally, in the foreword, Kevin Roberts calls gender-affirming care “child abuse.”

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership proposes the removal of “DEI” references from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists,” claiming that such efforts undermine the purpose of these agencies. The proposal also calls for the investigation and prosecution of supposed discrimination brought on by DEI policies.Fox News has been��vocal in the anti-DEI crusade as well, pushing many of the same talking points found in Mandate, including that DEI and pro-LGBTQ policies are a detriment to the U.S. Army’s effectiveness and that DEI policies constitute discrimination: 

GOP propaganda organ Fox “News” and Project 2025 are in lockstep on many key policies, such as opposition to DEI and LGBTQ+ rights, Christian nationalism, and Schedule F.

[mariacallous]

When Zdenek Koubek walked into an office job in Prague in 1935, he braced himself for a familiar fear: ostracization by his colleagues. For the first time, he was showing up presenting as his authentic, masculine self. It’s a moment familiar to many transgender people, seared into your brain as you navigate coming out to the world and being who you actually are. But for almost everyone else, it’s private. For Koubek, it was relentlessly covered in the global press—in a society where, until a lawyer granted him a change of birth certificate, he could be arrested for “cross-dressing” for donning pants and a men’s coat.

A year earlier, Koubek had become a national icon winning a gold medal in the 800-meter—not in the Olympics but in the Women’s World Games, a rival event that allowed women to compete in events that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would not. But for Koubek, who in modern terms would be labeled an intersex person assigned female at birth, the victory wracked him with guilt as he felt he was an imposter in women’s events despite society labeling him as one. His story and many others are chronicled in Michael Waters’s new book, The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports, which dives deep into the trans individuals who disrupted attempts to strictly define gender at the Olympics.

Despite current conventions, sport was not always policed the same way it is now. Even after some federations spent decades using tests to determine someone’s gender, the rise in visibility of trans and intersex athletes has prompted federations to once again explicitly define who is eligible for which gender categories. Athletes such as Caster Semenya—a runner from South Africa whose leaked private medical information determined her to be intersex—have been caught in this fight over who federations determine fits in the male and female categories.

Koubek and other athletes profiled in The Other Olympians would be undeniably categorized as intersex or transmasculine by today’s standards—identified by others as female at birth but identifying as men themselves. Meanwhile, the non-cisgender athletes who draw the most scrutiny today are transfeminine, identified as male at birth but identifying as women themselves. The trans men of the 1930s were depicted as being cheats trying to enter women’s competitions for their own advantage. The trans women of the 2020s are being depicted as cheats trying to enter women’s competitions for their own advantage.

Yet the idea that gender has to be tested did not arise out of nowhere—it was one driven by sports administrators of the 1930s with distinctly dubious politics.

The Other Olympians centers on the stories of these queer athletes, a time when we have much more understanding about transgender identities and those same athletes’ access to medical and social transitions. What is striking, however, is the difference many of these trans athletes received in the media compared with the attention many get today. Society at large was surprisingly accepting of the malleability of gender, according to media reports the book details. But the officials in charge were determined to enforce their own hard boundaries.

“It was just a small handful of officials who felt threatened by the idea that athletes could transition, then were like, ‘Oh, we have to do something about it,’” Waters told Foreign Policy. “And they didn’t really seem to know what they were doing and just decided that they had to do something.”

Koubek struggled with his victory in the Women’s World Games and almost considered publicly returning his medal during the event given his struggles with his own gender identity. It’s the reverse of the often pushed, if evidence-less, notion today that athletes are supposedly subverting gender binaries in the pursuit of victory. Athletes such as former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines have even gone as far to sue sport organizations for letting transgender athletes compete alongside them. Other cisgender athletes have vocalized support for barring trans athletes on similar grounds.

Koubek was so concerned with his place in the sporting landscape that he eschewed all forms of celebration of his accomplishments, seeking instead to ensure that others benefited. His actions represent the Olympic ideal of fair play and equal competition—in contrast to the sport officials.

Starting with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, sport officials began to embrace the notion that sex testing was vital to create a level playing field in elite sport. The stories that prompted these officials to take action would be unrecognizable in today’s cultural landscape.

Being an elite athlete requires immense discipline and control over your own body, forming it to the highest standards in your sport. That kind of dedication toward changing and adapting your own figure is something many transgender people innately relate to. Yet instead of embracing how trans athletes bridge the gender divide with agency, sport officials viewed them as a threat, even if they wanted to compete in the gender they identified as.

Notably, most transgender sport bans these days allow transmasculine athletes an opportunity to seek an exemption to take testosterone as part of their transition without any sort of other medicalization needed to “prove” their gender. Testosterone is one of the most commonly known banned substances but a necessary part of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for transmasculine athletes. Sport bodies have deemed that for transmasculine athletes, taking testosterone as part of transition is fundamentally different from its use to doping

Meanwhile, transfeminine athletes, in an increasing amount of sports, are required to medicalize themselves to levels deemed passable by cisgender sport officials, many of whom are cisgender men. As part of transfeminine HRT, many trans women take a combination of estrogen and testosterone suppressants while being carefully monitored by a doctor—ideally. However, sport bodies have taken that further, declaring limits to the amount of testosterone in which transfeminine athletes can have in their bodies, even if it is not what their bodies would regularly be producing while on HRT. This means instead of just pursuing a medical transition, transfeminine athletes need to conform their endocrine system to specific ranges set by sport officials.

Two officials, American Avery Brundage and Swede Sigfrid Edstrom, were key to defining gender at the Olympics. Edstrom for many years before World War II led the International Association of Athletics Federations (now known as World Athletics) and used his political maneuvering to bring the Women’s World Games under his purview. His main ally was Brundage, the head of the American Olympic Committee, a precursor to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, who successfully blocked a boycott movement aimed at stopping U.S. participation at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.

Increasingly working with German sport officials close to the Nazi regime, Edstrom and Brundage rose to the top of power in the Olympic world and introduced regimes of sex testing and medical certification. Both eventually assumed the Presidency of the IOC, and their reactionary gender politics still define many of the norms today.

“I do really believe after researching this history that where we’re at today was not inevitable, but I think sex testing has become kind of an intrinsic part of how the Olympics worked for so long that it can kind of feel like it’s just how sports works,” Waters told Foreign Policy.

As sport federations such as World Rugby and World Athletics seek to limit transfeminine athlete participation, The Other Olympians seeks to showcase queer history in sport that has been around since before many modern practices were in place.

One area where more scholarship could be useful is the highlighting of transfeminine, or potentially transfeminine, athletes in the 1930s and how they navigated the changing sporting landscape. Did they, too, wish to compete as their authentic selves but hid their desires? But discrimination against trans women in the 1930s was even tighter than against trans men.

“I think my big thing is, like we’re really seeing now with all these anti-trans policies, how queer history is not linear and how it’s not a linear story of progress,” Waters said about what surprised him the most from researching The Other Olympians.

Sports have always been inherently political. So are our notions of gender. Intersex and trans people blur simple binaries in challenging ways. Those political decisions impact who gets to participate in the upper echelons of competition. These decisions impact sports all the way down to the grassroots levels, as federations and national governing bodies take their cues from the IOC, where the latest policy has allowed each international federation to set its own rules.

For example, British rowing has set a policy in which only women assigned female at birth can compete, while transfeminine athletes must compete in a newly created open category, othering them and separating them from main competitions. This policy is in line with the current British government’s view of gender and identity, but notably it is very different from the World Rowing policy that allows trans athletes to compete in the gender they identify with restrictions.

Or, in other words, as Waters said, “We can see the direct line between what happened in 1936 and what we have today.”

[cieloclercs]

𝐬𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐝𝐞 | 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 #𝟏

2h ago | 2 December 2020 by Amelia Marchetti (editor & creator)

IT’S OFFICIAL! Newly rebranded Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team have today announced the signing of Formula 2 Champion Noêmia Senna Borges — sound familiar? Yes, the daughter of four-time World Champion Gabriel Carvalho Borges, and niece of the late great Ayrton Senna will be racing in Formula 1 next season. Here’s everything you need to know about this record-breaking contract deal!

(… Sebastian Vettel & Noêmia Senna Borges pair up )

(… Ferrari sign Carlos Sainz from McLaren )

Early this morning, Aston Martin Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer officially announced the signing of Senna Borges as the team’s second driver on a year-long contract, joining Sebastian Vettel in an all-new line up for the rebranded team. Now why exactly is this such a historic moment?

Well, apart from the legacy her last name carries, Senna Borges will also become one of only five women ever to race in Formula 1, and the youngest to do so by a considerable amount — eleven years! Not since 1992, when Giovanna Amati signed for Brabham, have we seen a woman even considered for a first driver position in a Formula 1 team. It’s safe to say, this is a pioneering step towards greater inclusivity in motorsports, brought about by a young driver who has spoken out passionately about the considerable gender divide in Formula 1. Well, if there’s anyone capable of bringing about change in this timeless sport, a Senna and a Borges is as safe a bet as any!

Let us know your thoughts on this historic signing in the comments below!

READ MORE!

Who is Noêmia Senna Borges? The talented legacy set to make waves in the Formula 1 world

Charles Leclerc & Noêmia Senna Borges: The paddock’s favourite friendship turned sour?

74k COMMENTS!

view all…

user1 Omg Charles and Noa reunion when?

user2 Wonder if she’s still bitter about Leclerc stealing her Ferrari seat…

user3 Now THIS is the duo I want to see

user4 Ferrari should’ve signed her when they had the chance!

user5 I don’t get the hype tbh. She’s just another nepo baby 🤷‍♀️

user6 Just another nepo baby? She’s the 2019 F2 Champion ffs 😭

Want to keep updated with all things Formula 1? Make sure to subscribe to the Paddock Pass newsletter for the latest news and gossip directly from the grid!

taglist: @ricciardosheart

author’s note

just a quick sneak peek of what’s to come in the summer 🥰

[schmergo]

The Olympic Trials for gymnastics start tonight and there is one gymnast named Skye Blakely who I believe is under a witch’s curse.

Full disclaimer that although I follow gymnastics and root for my favorite gymnasts for personal/ narrative reasons, I have basically zero technical knowledge of the sport behind being able to distinguish between a good, mid, and disastrous routine. So this post will not get very technical, it’s just more about the story arc.

Skye is a talented young athlete who was too young to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics… until they got pushed back to 2021. She performed so well that she qualified for Olympic Trials, which is no easy feat, especially when you didn’t expect to be training for the Olympics so soon.

At WARMUPS for Olympic Trials in 2021, so not even getting to compete at all, she fell while running to the vault and tore a ligament in her elbow, ending her season and her chances at the Olympics.

Now, you might say, Skye never had a huge chance of making the 2021 Olympics anyway. That’s true, but it gets worse.

Since recovering from her elbow injury, Skye has performed well in national competitions and is especially well-known for her talent on balance beam. But every time she gets selected for an international competition, she falls off the balance beam.

She made the 2022 World Championships team, which is a huge deal. There, she had two bizarre mishaps. For one, her hair ribbon came untied and got in her face while she was competing on balance beam, messing up her concentration. For another, it was stormy outside and there was a leak in the ceiling, leading to A PUDDLE OF WATER on the balance beam while she was competing!

She got her chance for redemption at the 2023 World Championships, which she qualified for again after winning 3 silver medals at the US National Championships (huge achievement).

This time, she didn’t even make the event final for balance beam. During the qualifying rounds, she performed a really good beam routine, dismounted, and literally landed on her head instead of her feet.

But in 2024, Skye came back strong and surprised everyone with an extremely good performance at the USA National Championships, second only to Simone Biles. Never very well-known for her vault, she suddenly came in with a massively upgraded vault that outscored the nation’s best vault specialists (except for Simone).

The conversation quickly turned from “Skye has a good chance of making the Olympic team” to ”Skye is a 100% locked-in, sure thing member of the Olympic Team.”

Yesterday, the athletes chosen for Olympic Trials got a chance to practice on the equipment they’ll be competing on this weekend. While practicing a floor routine— so again, not even getting a chance to compete at Trials— Skye fell and injured her leg so badly that she had to be carried off the floor. Obviously everyone was super worried.

Today the news came out: it’s an Achilles’ tendon tear. She won’t be competing in the Olympic Trials this year. For the SECOND TIME in her short 19-year life, Skye qualified for this major honor only to miss out on her chance to compete at the very last minute.

It’s a witch’s curse, I tell you.

[bengiyo]

If you had to pick one film that was your favorite from each unit of your Queer Cinema Syllabus, which ones would they be and why?

The Queer Cinema Syllabus grew out of a conversation that @shortpplfedup and I were having about what queer works I would show to a prospective BL fan, which eventually led to the creation of @the-conversation-pod. Captain Hands here has decided to run the gauntlet and has reached Unit 2.

Unit 1: Coming of Age Post-Moonlight

It's definitely Pariah (2011). This movie and Moonlight (2016) are having a complex conversation about Blackness and Queerness that feels so resonant to me. It's so rare that we see lesbians of any sort treated with this much complexity and sympathy in a contemporary setting. The complex web of lesbian interactions here isn't matched that often, and the only other movie that comes to mind it The Watermelon Woman (1996).

Unit 2: Race, Disability, and Class

Probably The Way He Looks (2014) because it's an easy layup to introduce folks to the genre. The intersection between Leo's blindness and his queerness gives the newer person multiple things to think about and forces them to consider how queer people are more than just their queerness. I also feel warmly about this film because it was a project we followed all the way from short film to movie, and I love that we were able to get the entire cast back.

Unit 3: Faith and Religion

You haven't gotten here, but this is where things start to get especially heavy. I think for this section I'm going with The Wise Kids (2011) because I really like the way Stephen Cone approaches the struggle with faith queer and non-queer people have in evangelical spaces. There's an honesty that I really admire. This is not an easy film, but it's lingered with me for over a decade.

Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley

This is the section of straight losses. I don't know that I ever want to watch it again, but I would probably select Bent (1997) as my favorite because the idea that we could still love even in the greatest of horrors spoke to me. I also think the performances in this adaptation are phenomenal.

Unit 5: Lesbians

I think we just passed Lesbian Visibility Day, so happy birthday, lesbians! This is actually a difficult selection because there are so many great films in this section. I think, today, I'm giving it to The Handmaiden (2016), but I almost chose Bound (1996).

Unit 6: Gems

I don't even need to look to know Big Eden (2000) is in this section. This section whips ass all around, but Big Eden is my favorite because there's just so much love all over this movie, and every new fact I learn about the BTS of it makes me love it more. Arye Gross and Eric Shweig did not have to go as hard as they did in this movie. The director left that choice to them a veteran actors and they did that 23 years ago. Nothing but admiration and respect. This is one of my most beloved films.

Unit 7: Asian Film Warm-up

This is a difficult selection because I think it depends on my mood, but for now, I'll go with The Stranger by the Shore (2020). This is a very Japanese take on second-chance romance. I like the way Japan approaches the quiet internalized homophobia that grips us. Some of the same things in Minato's Laundromat can be found here. It's also gorgeous and approaches sex in a frank way that I really loved.

Unit 8: Yaoi

Once again I don't even need to look to know that it's Yuri!!! On Ice (2016). This show is so goddamn gay. I know people feel like it was censored because of the kiss, but these two proposed to each other. It's what sports anime wishes it could be with the open queerness on display from so many characters. It's beautiful and so much fun.

Unit 9: Boys Love

I will not be selecting a favorite BL, but I will say that I really love The Boy Foretold by the Stars (2020) and it's a movie. I loved that we had a femme lead for once and that they explored what faith meant for femmes. It's a film that took the romantic lead's gay awakening very seriously and explored what being together might look like in a sequel called Love Beneath the Stars.

I'm looking forward to you completing the syllabus!

[kny111]

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is promoting reparations in a bid to curb health and wealth disparities of black New Yorkers — but the effort is being met with accusations that it’s “sowing racial divisiveness,” The Post has learned.

The proposal for federal reparations is spelled out in a bombshell report from the city’s Department of Health and the Federal Reserve Bank entitled “Analyzing the Racial Wealth Gap and Implications for Health Equity.”

“The goal of a [federal] reparations program would be to seek acknowledgment, redress, and closure for America’s complicity in federal, state, and local policies … that have deprived black Americans of equitable access to wealth and wealth-building opportunities,” the report said.

The city’s Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan and his team offered three key recommendations including: a fresh approach to public health policy, how to improve data collections on wealth and health outcomes and getting the community more involved with health care decisions.

But moderate and conservative politicians opposed to reparations accused Adams’ health minions of turning into ideologues and social justice activists instead of doing their jobs.

“Add reparations and sowing racial divisiveness to the list of greatest policy hits by Commissioner Vasan’s and his health department, right alongside the crack pipe vending machine, heroin ‘empowerment’ signs on subways, firing unvaccinated city workers, supporting government drug dens; and banning unvaccinated kids from sports,” fumed Council Republican Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).

The New York legislature approved a commission to address economic, political and educational disparities by black people in June and follows the lead of California, which became the first state to form a reparations task force in 2020.

New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the first black person to hold the position, called the legislation “historic.”

Adams has previously expressed support for the commission which is awaiting Hochul’s signature.

“We have consistently brought together experts to discuss a variety of ideas to promote equity in our city and we will continue to do so,” said the Health Department’s spokesman.

“We have an obligation to help New Yorkers lead longer, healthier lives.”

As with most progress in this system, we have to first inspect its ongoing involvement in pro enslavement systems. Not only did the historical ties to the Trans-Atlantic-slave trade leave on going structural residual connections that linger in our society today, it continues to exist in the 13th amendment's clause: slavery illegal unless a crime was found on you. That "unless" aspect made it essentially persist as is under the guise of hyper-criminalization at a system level. This has had adverse, negative effect on everyone including the environment. These are facts that can be proven. Not just social justice counter points. Besides, we are literally (regardless of what we say about it) immersed in politics and social justice through our lived social experiences. Claiming "the social justice advocates are the issue for pointing out what exists" is not helpful and adds to the lack of communal education required to understand these things. We need problack proindigenx reperations and restituion.

[aeolianblues]

DID YOU KNOW I COULD CLAIM THE DREAMER FROM THE DREAM?

I’ve finally heard the new Fontaines D.C. song. Instant favourite. A well named song! This line is killing me.

I should not be able to feel nostalgic for another man’s past. Yet there I am, in the room with them, they’re such good songwriters that I can feel the memories in the air. The video doesn’t help! The way you can see subtle mannerisms in little Tom, little Deego, little Curly; the way you can see little Grian and little Carlos’ aspirations through the years, buoying them through a life and love in music, in sport, in friendships and joy and all the things that keep them the lively and alive people they are today. Grian frolicking in a field, something I can point to the summer of 2020 and those lockdown performances where he recorded his vocals in a field of daffodils. The smiles, the singing, the football, the pool, everything. Christ it’s a nostalgic video.

‘Favourite’ is the uncovered fossil of a 50s radio station, it represents such happiness that it makes you uncomfortable; the song that welcomes you through the gates of heaven, and there’s a melancholy in that when you realise you’re no longer living.

—Grian Chatten

You’ve been my favourite for a long time…

[remembertheplunge]

Pandemic and Protest And an Altered State Of Living.June 2 to June 4 2020

June 2, 2020 Tuesday 6:14pm Jail Lobby

Barricades are up near the entry door to the lobby..Like, they are trying to protect from being rammed into.

I just invented a new term: Trump-demic! Inspired by the “oh fuck” Trump pandemic meteor hurtling at earth post card I sent to Zoe recently.

This edition of the Journal is the Protest edition. Protests rage across the country. 

Jared Is not happy that I spent $60 on this journal.

End of entry

Notes : 7/8/2024

I wrote the above entry in the lobby of the Stanislaus County Jail 5 miles West of Modesto. Large cement barricades had been set up to block an attempt to forcibly take the building by Black Lives Matter protesters.

My sister Zoe and I liked to send humorous post cards back and forth to one another. On portrayed a meteorite racing toward earth entitled “oh fuck”. It was the Trump Pandemic meteor!

I had paid $60 for the leather bound journal that I wrote the June 2020 entries in. Jared was my law clerk and business manager and was not happy with the investment.

________________________________________________________

6/3/2020 Wednesday 7:10pm 

NPR: Market Place is on. The Pandemic--Protest is in full swing!

I was up in Stockton at the jail. a fellow defense attorney said police are surrounding the court house. She told me not to come to Stockton tomorrow for court. Too dangerous. She will appear for me.

Meanwhile, Jared said a protest in Oakdale today went violent.

The feeling out here is shaky.

The protests flair here. The virus flairs there. But you never know where or when.

End of entry

Notes 7/8/2024

NPR was National Public radio and Market Place was a show on that station. I listened to Market Place a lot in the early =days of the pandemic. They had honest reporting of how the Pandemic was unfolding.

Oakdale is a town in eastern Stanislaus County, California. 

__________________________________________-

6/4/2020. Thursday 5:20pm Rasputiun’s

Cut. Cut. Gone The two trees marked for destruction are gone. Progress? Productivity? Pandemic and Protest Rage, cutting down 2 trees took priority.

Jerad and I had a beautiful talk with the female clerk at Preservation Coffee House this afternoon. She went to the Sunday 11am protest at 1010 10th (down town Modesto, California) and will go to one in Ripon. She told us that“We need to be willing to be injured to push for change.” .

Magnificent.

Jared said that during the Oakdale protest yesterday, Trump 2020 “all lives matter” stood across from “Black Lives Matter” protesters.

People are out in mobs now. 

I think 10,000 protested yesterday in San Fransisco, Thelma and Louise style, racing for the viral cliff’s edge.

I anticipate a spike in virus and in violence.

Mobile Art Gallery just passed

End of entries

Notes 7/8/2024;

Rasputin’s is a DVD record store located near highway 99 and the rail road tracks in Modesto. During the pandemic, when I could no longer write in coffee houses, I would sit in my car, listen to Mavis Staples songs, write and observe. I got to know the area of the parking lot that I would write in very well. Two young trees I often sat near had been marked to be cut down  with white paint rings around their trunks. On June 4, they were gone and I eulogized them in my entry.  There was another man who would at times park there, too in his hot yellow sports car. He would read his  newspaper. He never looked my way, but, I’m sure that he saw me. Pandamic exiles resorting to a parking lot for covid free reverie.

In 2020 I started noticing Graffiti on the trains as I drove up and down  Highway 99. In March 2020, when the State was in  lock down and the highway electronic signs were screaming out “Stay home and live!”.  I had to be out and drive for court. I never sheltered in place. Besides, I wanted to see the world in its grip of fear. It was fascinating. But, scary , too. And there were the trains. And the Graffiti art work on the train cars. And they were comforting. A message written from before the time of the plague , barreling along as if to say, come follow me . I will lead you to safely out of the virus veil. 

Preservation was Preservation Coffee in Modesto where pre pandemic I spent many hours writing. Post pandemic I have rarely returned and never to write there.

Thelma and Louise was a 1991 movie in which two wild intense women go on a crazy vacation that finds them hurling over  a cliff in the end.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

EVERYONE is fed up with them...

"Sadly, We’re Not Done With Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Just Yet" | The Daily Caller

LEENA NASIR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

April 11, 2024

Sorry folks, but it seems Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are coming back with more viewing content.

Just when we thought they’d bow out of the spotlight they say they hate so much, it was revealed that they will be launching not one, but two new shows for Netflix. The streaming giant has welcomed them back with open arms after they signed a $100 million deal with the company in 2020 to produce content for them, but failed to generate popular content. Apparently, we’re all about to be exposed to Megan Markle once again, according to Deadline.

Markle and Harry will infiltrate your televisions with a new cooking, gardening and lifestyle show in which Markle will star.

There’s no official word yet, but it seems this first show will be an extension of her American Riviera Orchard business, which will dabble in the same sort of content. I’m not sure anyone will really be gripped by watching Markle tackle domestic duties, but she seems to think there’s something special in all of this.

The second show, as you may have guessed, is all about Harry. His passion for the world of professional polo will be explored and fans will get a chance to see what it’s like behind the scenes and in the competitions for the equestrian sport.  Somehow, the belief is that millions of people will want to watch this with bated breath.

I’m not as certain that a success story will come of this.

Markle’s podcast was canceled after just one run because nobody cared what she had to say, and now, we’re trying this all again. (RELATED: Meghan Markle Sinks To Incredible New Lows In Bizarre Coffee Ad)

The pair were already labeled as “grifters” for their initial podcast failure, and this all sounds eerily similar.

Here we go again …

©2024 The Daily Caller, Inc.

[imsadstuff]

Loving You Is Red - A Jeon Jungkook Fic, teaser 3

Link to fic: here

Synopsis:

Jeon Jungkook's name was unheard on the Formula 1 paddock till he got a chance to drive a Mercedes car as a reserve driver. His 2020 starts looking brighter as he signs with Ferrari and meets you, his teammates little sister. So many cliched tropes, strangers to friends to lovers, slow burn, dating brother's best friend, and most importantly Jeon Jungkook looks smoking hot in a Ferrari!

Author's Note:

So, this has been collecting dust in my drafts since I watched Drive to Survive last year, watched the new season, and got motivated to write this fic.

The fic is going to be released on 17th March 2023, mark your calendars!!

Please comment under if you want to be added to the reading list for this fic! ❤ Also, if you have any thoughts or ideas, please feel free to comment or message me and for the love of Jungkook, don't be a ghost reader!

Race 8 Austrian Grand Prix 2020

“Why?” Jungkook asks as he’s walking to the Ferrari office. It’s a meeting and photoshoot heavy day for him.

“Because I have a job now, even if it’s sorting my father’s emails and arranging his meetings, I can’t be there every weekend” you explain calmly as you swivel around in your office chair.

“What’s your day like today?” he asks as a fan stops him for a picture, he’s becoming better at being popular as every race happens.

“We have a few apartment showings, so I’ll be shadowing him, start to figure out if I want to do this or not” you say sipping on your coffee, you’d been arriving early at the office to have some moments of peace before the chaos starts.

“What is your day like?” you ask him and he just grunts, knowing how bad it is to sit through meetings.

“I have a strategy meeting, another meeting with the communications team, lunch with a bunch of promoters and in the evening we’re shooting a bunch of videos for ferrari’s youtube channel” Jungkook reiterates his schedule for the day, and he’s already starting to feel tired.

“Press has just been awful since the last race, no wonder we’re having comms meeting two days in a row” Jungkook had been trying to stay away from the negative headlines but everyone was absolutely shitting on Phillip this week.

“They like pitting you and Phillip against each other, last week was all the ammunition they needed” you had been screening all the click baity articles, they were absolutely making Phillip lose his mind.

“Do you think he hit me on purpose or was I really in his blind spot?” Jungkook asks opening the door to the conference room, most people are already here. Phillip is already slouched against a chair, looking defeated already.

“No comment” “Boo Freaking Hoo!!” he says and you can’t help but smile like a stupid idiot.

“Call me later if you can” you say and Jungkook hums a goodbye as he takes a seat opposite Phillip. 

“So, lots of bad press, people are divided” Claudia says, placing down multiple article print outs and newspapers on the table. 

“And thank you Phillip for snapping at the sky sports reporter, just handing them their headlines” this hasn’t been Phillip’s week, and he’s done with cameras and reporters.

“We need to take hold of the narrative or at least change it because the sponsors aren’t happy with the two drivers seemingly fighting each other. How about you go golfing or something this tuesday” Claudia suggests and Phillip immediately nods his head no. 

“He can’t golf to save his life and I have my sister’s birthday party that day-”

“So, just invite Jungkook, because I really need the news narrative to change” Claudia says with an authoritative tone, the two of them can’t even think about going against her. 

“I don’t want to intrude on a family thing-” Jungkook sounds a little offended by the whole situation, mostly he’s a little ticked off about you not telling him about your coming birthday.

“It’s not, it’s a surprise party with a few friends, I was going to invite you anyway” Phillip says and Claudia smiles widely.

“This is sorted then, I need at least a story with the birthday girl on the two of your instagram’s” The two of them are left alone as Claudia leaves, there’s still this animosity in the air.

“Just so we’re clear, I didn’t hit your car on purpose,” Phillip says, looking Jungkook square in his eyes.

“I know that,” Jungkook replies, a little too confidently.

“How can you be so sure?” Phillip asks as he sits up straight.

“You’re competitive, not petty” Jungkook leaves with a big smirk on his face, he’s been enjoying the season so far a little too much.

taglist:

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