for connecting sports writers across the AP with their colleagues at Canadian Press to survey players on all 31 National Hockey League teams on a defined set of topics, fueling exclusive stories during the playoffs. Among the takeaways: Almost half of the players surveyed support a change to the current playoff format.https://bit.ly/2UAregR
worked with boxing organizers and trainers to identify key boxers to follow. They spent time with several boxers, male and female, as they took their journey to this year’s finals.Read more.
broke news in the closely watched case Brittney Griner, the WNBA star jailed in Russia, reporting exclusively that a long-awaited phone between Griner and her wife never happened because the U.S. government mishandled the call.AP’s Tucker, a Washington national security reporter, and Doug Feinberg, WNBA beat reporter, collaborated across departments using source work and trusted credentials to land a video interview with Cherelle Griner, who revealed how her wife, Brittney Griner, tried to call nearly a dozen times through the American embassy in Russia on the couple’s fourth anniversary, but they never connected because the phone line at the embassy was apparently unstaffed.Read more
continues to hold Formula One accountable for racing in countries where human rights are routinely trampled. While covering the exceptionally intense and challenging kickoff to the F1 racing season in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Pugmire, AP’s Paris-based auto racing writer, held exclusive interviews with a released torture survivor and the 12-year-old son of a man on death row, and pressured Formula One heavyweights to advocate for human rights in both countries.Pugmire’s persistence led seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to tell him, “You sure don’t make it easy for me.” To which Pugmire replied, “That’s because you’re the only one who doesn’t duck questions.” In the private conversation that followed, the two shared experiences of meeting released prisoners, and Hamilton complimented Pugmire on his commitment to the issue. Read more
dominated coverage of figure skating from Beijing, reporting the top breaking news stories of the 2022 Olympics. With help from colleagues working in all formats, along with the Moscow staff and fellow staffers promoting AP’s content on social media, they covered all the angles with some of the biggest stories of the Winter Olympics, including AP’s most-read story of the month.Even before the pivotal night of the women’s competition, Skretta and the team delivered standout work, setting up the Games and the expected dominance of both the Russian women and American favorite Nathan Chen. And when a positive drug test was revealed for Russian favorite Kamila Valieva, the team kept AP well ahead of the competition.Among the highlights were Ellingworth’s definitive piece on Valieva's controversial coach, a follow-up the morning after the eventful women’s final, and fresh takes on the sport from Ho and Morrison, highlighting issues of body image, racism and the impact of the sport on such young skaters. Read more
put AP far ahead in confirming the details of a fatal stampede at a soccer stadium in Cameroon during the Africa Cup of Nations tournament. An early coverage decision made AP the only English-language news outlet with firm details on the tragedy for hours.Read more
broke news of the groundbreaking policy mandating that U.S. Olympic athletes and staff be vaccinated by Nov. 1 to use facilities of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in advance of February’s Beijing Games.Pells, AP’s longtime Olympics beat writer, knew that the committee was exploring a new vaccine policy and had followed the story closely. When the USOPC reached its decision they forwarded a stakeholders’ letter on the policy to Pells, telling him to be ready for its public release later in the week.Armed with the letter, Pells was fully prepped with a story and link to the freshly updated team website when the announcement came Wednesday, giving AP a full-fledged scoop on one of the first sports organizations anywhere to make vaccines mandatory. https://aplink.news/9mt
teamed up to break news from the NBA’s “Disney bubble” as teams suspended play over racial justice issues. Reynolds got the only on-the-record interview with an executive board member of the National Basketball Players Association, speaking with Andre Iguodala on the day that players decided that they would remain isolated at Walt Disney World and continue the postseason despite the protests.
The interview followed Reynolds’ scoop that the NBA’s owners had called an emergency meeting and that a three-hour meeting between players and coaches led to no consensus on how to go forward. The interview with Iguodala, and supplemental reporting by his colleague Mahoney, led to AP being able to break the news that teams would resume practice Friday and playing games Saturday.https://bit.ly/2Zsl7R7https://bit.ly/33fyFk6https://bit.ly/2RjPqVvhttps://bit.ly/3bJ5XvI
for acting on a tip about an imminent Denver Broncos stadium naming rights deal, breaking the news of the team’s 21-year, $126 million agreement with Empower Retirement. Stapleton leveraged his 15 years on the Broncos beat – and AP’s wide reach – to get the scoop. https://bit.ly/2kI3mw3
for a series of nearly 20 videos from the Tour de France, using iPhone and GoPro to create short-form, customer-ready products. The videos drove traffic to their comprehensive text coverage of the race itself as well as “Taste of the Tour,” their daily series of entertaining, informative and entirely exclusive cross-format stories exploring the people, places, cuisine and hidden tales in the regions crossed by the Tour. They shot video and interviews in the early morning, before starting long days covering each stage, then edited their video stories in the car as they drove hundreds of miles to the stage finish, where they then leapt back into race coverage. On Twitter alone, the video series racked up close to 300,000 views, more than covering the pair’s modest wine tab.https://bit.ly/2yvemQshttps://bit.ly/2Ktu58Dhttps://bit.ly/2SUr7O2https://bit.ly/2K9dvMihttps://bit.ly/2YvHXbj
for an exclusive analysis of the coaching staffs of all 32 NFL teams and discovered that while minorities make up about 35 percent of staffs, they hold just 7 percent of the key stepping-stone positions that lead to head coach, a number that has not been discussed by other organizations that look at coaching diversity. https://bit.ly/2TCB4iK
raced to cover rapidly developing stories as dozens of sports leagues and federations around the globe made decisions affecting players, fans and entire seasons in reaction to the spread of the coronavirus.https://bit.ly/2IXA9Wehttps://bit.ly/3a1Vg5Khttps://bit.ly/2UoUAkehttps://bit.ly/3923lWVhttps://bit.ly/2U37Xru
for their work showing that dozens of states are expected to consider legalizing sports betting this year. An AP analysis shows that they should not expect it to provide a windfall for their budgets. http://bit.ly/2Tq6JDE
When the Supreme Court allowed all states to offer betting on sports, some lawmakers across the country saw an opportunity: Here was a way to bolster state budgets with revenue from an activity that was already happening in the shadows. But an AP review showed that actual tax revenue has yet to match expectations in the majority of states that legalized sports gambling.
State government team reporter Geoff Mulvihill, based in New Jersey, and Rhode Island statehouse reporter Jennifer McDermott looked through monthly state revenue reports and then compared the tax revenue generated to the original estimates in the legislation that authorized sports betting. They found that in four of the six states that legalized it last year – Rhode Island, West Virginia, Mississippi and Pennsylvania – tax revenue was far below what the state had projected it would be.
The revenue story was the latest in a string of distinctive stories from reporters working the sports betting beat. Many of the stories, including the state revenue piece, have been accompanied by a data set compiled by Mulvihill that tracks every piece of legislation related to sports gambling. It is being made available to all AP customers who subscribe to our data distribution platform and has been promoted to local reporters as a way to add context to their stories.
For revealing the difference between lawmakers’ promises on tax revenue and the reality, Mulvihill and McDermott win this week’s Best of the States prize.
for snagging video of two of the NBA’s top shooters, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, engaging in a competitive 3-point shootout and getting Durant to discuss it. http://foxs.pt/2obvsjR
for his interview with NBA star Dwayne Wade, who spoke about his decision to join LeBron James in Cleveland and his desire to one day return to the Miami Heat. http://abcn.ws/2xNV4qG
AP’s sleuth work helped AP capture images of a North Korean international sports delegation, believed to be the first since the start of the COVID pandemic.Read more
for putting AP ahead with word that the NBA and its players union had reached a tentative deal for a new labor agreement. http://abcn.ws/2hWwfkz
Remember these images from the Inauguration: The new first couple dancing across a giant presidential seal at a ball? Faces in the crowd cheering or crying in the rain? The instant when Donald Trump took in the scene through an opening door before stepping onto the podium to become the 45th U.S. president?
Credit for those signature images, which appeared across the globe almost as they happened, goes to the skill and artistry of a hand-picked team of AP photographers and photo editors – and also to the cutting-edge, behind-the-scenes efforts of AP technicians working hand-in-hand with them to cover the intensely competitive event.
Their extraordinary work, a stream of 2,000 photos sent from daybreak until well after midnight, earns the Beat of the Week.
for an AP exclusive and the first one-on-one interview with two he wife of Interpol's ex-president, who disappeared in China.https://bit.ly/2EvQGlbhttps://bit.ly/2OurGz3