sport world

RIO DE JANEIRO >> It was all so strikingly familiar, the Olympic Games women’s 1,500 meter final playing out almost step for step as Genzebe Dibaba’s world-record shattering triumph at last year’s World Championships in Beijing. And with two laps remaining the Ethiopian, as if following the same script, took off just as she had a year earlier with a move so bold it was mind boggling. Then in the final 200 meters, Dibaba and the race ran off script. Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon flew past Dibaba and then continued to pull away from the world champion all the way to the finish line for a 4 minute, 8.92 second victory at the Olympic Stadium Tuesday night that raised as many questions as it answe...

BEVERLY HILLS — The best way Sarah Hammer can describe her sport is organized chaos. The Redondo Beach native and Temecula Chaparral High School graduate will be competing in bicycle track racing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. It is not just time-trial racing, one or two cyclists on the track at the same time. It’s more like NASCAR short-track racing with 43 cars banging into each other every lap on a half-mile oval. In this case, it is 20 cyclists practically ruing into each other on a 250-meter banked oval track. “It looks ugly,” Hammer said of some aspects of her sport. “People are blown up all over the place. It’s not that fluid like a beautiful team. “So one of the big things is ...