Latest news with #Kram
USA Today
6 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
ESPN calls Thunder's decision not to draft Alperen Sengun their worst mistake of 2020s
Nobody bats 1.000 in the NBA. If you're lucky enough to be the head decision-maker, you'll stomach through some misses with roster construction. That was the premise of ESPN's Zack Kram's recent piece. Kram went through every team's receipts to see their biggest mistake made in the 2020s. At the halfway mark of the decade, enough time has passed to properly judge recent moves. For context, all of the moves mentioned were brought up in retrospect. That means even if the deal made sense at the time, how it's aged matters most. If the thought process was criticized at the time, that's just bonus points to paint how badly a front office missed. Fresh off an NBA championship, the Oklahoma City Thunder don't have many moves to heavily hate on. They had one of the greatest seasons ever built on mostly homegrown talent. For those who were brought in, it was savvy offseason moves. That said, Kram bundled a group of draft trades that didn't work out for the Thunder. Considering the rich draft capital they've had for the decade, misses are bound to happen. Especially for an aggressive front office. You're guaranteed at least one NBA draft deal by Sam Presti. "Three draft deals reflect Presti's all-too-human fallibility," Kram wrote. "In 2020, he dealt the No. 25 and 28 picks for No. 17, thereby giving away future starters Immanuel Quickley and Jaden McDaniels, while bringing Aleksej Pokusevski to Oklahoma City." That's fair. The Thunder were in the infancy stages of their rebuild. It was all about taking huge swings of upside. That's what Pokusevski provided. The 18-year-old was extremely raw but had interesting tools. Injuries and inconsistent play stalled anything from being materialized, though. He's been out of the league for a year now. "In 2021, he traded up from No. 36 to No. 32, reaching for Jeremiah Robinson-Earl instead of being content with useful backup Miles McBride," Kram continued. "Worst of all, also in 2021, Presti traded No. 16 pick Alperen Sengun — a European prospect who, unlike Pokusevski, panned out — to Houston for two future picks, which he used a year later in a package for Ousmane Dieng." There's been talk about the Sengun trade since the day it happened. He's turned into a one-time All-Star, but his playoff limitations this past year showed he's better off being a second-option or third-option. That's why the Rockets traded for Kevin Durant. And even if you want to call the Sengun trade a miss, it didn't really sting the Thunder. They added Chet Holmgren a year later with the No. 2 pick of the 2022 NBA draft. He's turned into one of the best defensive players in the league and was the third-best player on an NBA champion. Getting signed to a five-year, $250 million extension this offseason also validated the Thunder's decision to pass up on Sengun. He's a nice player, but not the type of player you really lose sleep over. Especially after you captured the Larry O'Brien trophy last month.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
An LED track, super shoes, and a suit made from something called Aeronodes
7.65 seconds. That's the amount of time that Kenyan Faith Kipyegon needs to shave from her world record time in order to become the first woman to run the mile in under 4 minutes. Kipyegon, a three-time gold medalist, has spent months training for an exhibition on Thursday in Paris where she'll take a crack at the mythic sub-four barrier. An attempt, she says, to 'cement her legacy.' The event, dubbed Breaking4, is being staged by Nike, Kipyegon's sponsor. To help her make history, everyone from physiologists to shoe designers have rallied to find ways to help her trim every hundredth of a second possible—some of which make the run ineligible for official world records. It's a tricky task. The mile is short enough that small benefits have little time to accrete as they do in, say, the marathon. At the same time, the short distance means that 'any glitch is magnified,' says Brett Kirby, a performance researcher at Nike. Recently, I traveled to Nike's LeBron James Innovation Center in Beaverton, Oregon, to learn where they've tried to find those elusive seconds. Thursday's exhibition is being staged at Paris's Stade Sébastien Charléty at 8 PM local time. After poring over location data from around the world for months, organizers settled on the 20,000-person stadium for several reasons. The French capital has a one-hour time difference with Kenya, where Kipyegon lives and trains, and so requires little adjustment for the 31-year-old runner. The city's elevation is also advantageous. Paris sits at just 115 feet above sea level. Kipyegon trains at a small camp called Kaptagat nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, where the air pressure is much lower, and the blood carries less oxygen. At such elevations the human body responds by making more red blood cells, which enable it to carry more oxygen with every heartbeat, explains Rodger Kram, a professor emeritus in the Integrative Physiology Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As a result, 'When you go down to sea level, you've sort of got an extra scuba tank; you can deliver more oxygen to your muscles,' says Kram. The timing of the event was also an important factor. Based on historical data, conditions on race evening in Paris could be reasonably expected to be 68 degrees, with 50-percent relative humidity and 60-percent cloud cover, Nike researchers said, though the current weather forecast predicts slightly elevated temperatures and perhaps a little rain. In a race as short as one mile, 'The temperature and the humidity are relatively unimportant, as long as it's reasonable,' says Kram. The more important weather choice, Kram says, is to run on a calm day, and at a calm time of day. Presumably, that's one reason why the race will take place in the evening, as the sun sets and diurnal breezes diminish. (Faith Kipyegon on how she'll run a 4-minute mile—and why motherhood has made her faster) The stadium has a state-of-the-art track, installed in 2019, that provides a runner both shock absorption and energy return. But Kipyegon's real advantage on the oval will come in the form of a so-called Wavelight pace-setting system. Once she begins to run, 400 computerized lights built into the track's inner curb will set an automated pace for the Kenyan—similar to the way a mechanical rabbit is used to guide greyhounds around a dog track. The lights are very effective in helping runners, says Kram. 'You don't have to think about your pacing, your effort—'Am I going out too fast? Am I going too slow?'' Which is a huge boon, because correct pacing is crucial. A 2014 study suggested that the most successful strategy for running a record-breaking mile time is to run all four laps at nearly the same pace, which is contrary to how many milers pace the distance. (The traditional pacing structure for each of the four laps often has been faster-slower-slowest-faster.) A handful of places around the world have mild weather in June, sit at sea level, and feature cutting edge tracks. But there was a final, hard-to-quantify factor that tipped the scales in favor of Stade Sébastien Charléty. Kipyegon associates the track with great things: it's where she set the 1500m world record last July. While Wavelight will show Kipyegon how fast to run, she's also expected to be flanked by a phalanx of fellow runners known as pacers. Their primary task is to shield her from the wind as she runs at 15 miles an hour. Drafting reduces aerodynamic drag, allowing an athlete to run faster without expending more energy. Without pacers, studies have shown, the air resistance encountered by an athlete who's running at 4-minute-mile pace can cause their oxygen consumption to increase by as much as 5 to 10 percent. Before the advent of fancy flashing lights on a track, pacers also set a correct pace for a runner. And they'll still do that job for Kipyegon, which allows her to worry even less about strategy and instead simply lock into the act of running. They serve another purpose, too: The mile is an excruciating distance. The third lap has been called the loneliest minute in all of sports—when the lungs scream to stop and yet the finish line is nowhere in sight. The presence of another runner before you, pulling you down the track, can help you feel that you're not alone in your agony. In a study published last winter in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Kram and others argued that it was possible for Kipyegon to run a mile in 3:59.37 if she utilized drafting provided by a pacer exactly four feet in front of her and a second running exactly four feet behind her. (The rear pacer pushes air into the back of the runner, propelling her ever so slightly forward, a phenomenon seen in stock car races.) At the exhibition, Kipyegon may have pacers swap in and out as the race unspools—as Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge did when he became the first person to break two hours in the marathon in 2019—or she may stick with the same group of pacers throughout. (Nike hasn't offered any information about the pacers who will help Kipyegon or their pacing strategy). Kipyegon will wear ultralight track spikes that Nike has built specifically for the record attempt. Each shoe weighs about 85 grams, around 25-percent lighter than the ones she wore when she broke the mile record in 2023. (For comparison, a deck of cards weighs about 100 grams.) The upper of each spike is as light as three paperclips and is woven from a new, proprietary yarn that's never been used in a shoe before; the resulting fabric is so thin you can see your fingers through it. Shoe weight, or lack thereof, matters. The rule of thumb—or 'rule of toe,' as Kram calls it—is that for every 100 grams pared from a shoe's weight, the energy cost to the runner drops by about 1 percent. And each 1-percent decrease in energy cost translates to 2/3 of a percent increase in speed, says Kram, who has researched the relationship. For Kipyegon, a shoe that's nearly 30 grams lighter than her previous shoe could reasonably be expected to make her almost 0.3 percent faster—which translates to a savings of about 0.7 seconds, he estimates. Indeed, a study earlier this year found that trained middle- and long-distance runners wearing 'super-spikes' not unlike Kipyegon's shoes ran 1 to 2 percent faster than when they wore traditional spikes. These savings don't sound like a lot. But Kipyegon is trying to reduce her world record time by only 7.65 seconds—and lighter shoes get her nearly one-tenth of the way there. Even more helpful than the weight savings, Kram suspects, is that Nike also bolstered the new shoe with a so-called Air Zoom unit under the forefoot (think of an ultra-springy airbag) that's three millimeters taller than in her previous track shoe, which will boost the energy return (though Nike declined to say by how much). During the race Kipyegon will wear a Nike-designed suit, leggings, and armbands featuring thousands of 'aeronodes,' or tiny bumps, placed in strategic patches. The bumps are designed to smooth out 'noisy' air that can subtly impede a runner, said Lisa Gibson, who works in Apparel Innovation for Nike. Under the suit, Kipyegon wear a 3D-printed bra the company designed that's made of ultralight thermoplastic. In his biomechanics classes he teaches about two types of drag forces that can slow a runner. One is pressure drag, which is like the wave you feel when a car drives quickly past, he says, and accounts for about 90 percent of the drag a runner experiences. 'Reducing pressure drag is what the pacers are going to do,' he says. The suit, on the other hand, addresses surface drag, or the friction between the object and the fluid it's moving through. Counteracting surface drag is only important, though, if you're traveling at high speed (like a luge athlete barreling down an icy course) or else in a medium with a lot of drag, such as a swimmer in a pool, he says. (Remember Speedo's LZR Swimsuits that were so good at reducing drag that they were banned?) Nike has tinkered with drag-reducing clothing for a decade or more. And Kipchoge wore a pebbled tank top during his record-shattering run in 2019. A spokesperson for the brand declined to say how much the shoes and the suit could be expected to contribute to reducing Kipyegon's time. Kram is skeptical that it will do much, but, he says, if you're trying to do anything to help 'you pull out all the stops.' There are several substances approved for competition by the World Anti-Doping Agency that Kipyegon could take prior to running to shave off a few more milliseconds. Caffeine, beet-root juice, and baking soda have all been shown to boost an athlete's performance. Kipyegon and her team have declined to say which substances she might use, if any. Will these advancements and hacks help carry Kipyegon through the tape before the 4-minute mark? In a white paper that appeared in April in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Kirby and other researchers wrote, 'To our knowledge, there is no female athlete presently displaying the endurance parameter ratio, or other physiological characteristics, required to run a sub-4 min mile.' The authors left the door open to the possibility, however, that unnamed aids—such as pacing, shoes, baking soda—could make up the nearly eight-second difference. Kram is more optimistic than that. 'I think that if she can run in the aerodynamic pocket, whatever she's provided with, [I] think she has a really good chance,' he said. 'In the past, she has not taken full advantage of aerodynamic drafting. So I hope that she's become a convert and is more skilled and can tuck into that little air pocket and do it.' He added, 'I think she's gonna get really close, if not break it.'
NBC News
22-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC News
It's a barrier women have never broken. Can Faith Kipyegon make mile history?
Last winter, a study startled the running world when a team of researchers concluded that, under the right circumstances, Kenyan superstar Faith Kipyegon could break a barrier long thought impossible — becoming the first woman to run one mile in less than 4 minutes. In the coming days, under a worldwide spotlight, that theory will be put to the test. Kipyegon on Thursday will line up in Paris in a Nike-sponsored race called "Breaking4," just four laps — and 1,609 meters, to be exact — from history. If there were ever a runner to make such an attempt, it would be the 31-year-old Kipyegon. A three-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500 meters, who holds the world record in the 1,500 meters and formerly held the record at 5,000 meters, as well, she has come closer to the 4-minute barrier than anyone. In 2023, racing in Monaco, Kipyegon smashed the previous world record for the mile by running 4:07.64. 'She's really stretching your imagination and acceptance of how women can excel in sport,' said Rodger Kram, an associate professor emeritus at the University of Colorado who co-authored the study published in February in the Royal Society of Open Science. Yet speed alone won't make up the 7.64-second difference between her personal best and a barrier-breaking achievement — a lifetime in a race as short as the mile. The great variable surrounds how exactly Kipyegon will "draft" off pace-setters around her, thus reducing her aerodynamic drag. How many pacers Nike will use, and what formation they will employ, remains a mystery. Kipyegon told The Associated Press that 'breaking four will really cement my legacy.' Yet breaking four minutes could lead to a wider effect. Half-marathons and marathons have enjoyed a post-pandemic participation boom, but Kram wondered whether Kipyegon's example could inspire more women to run middle distances. 'To see that, one, we actually want to go after a female record, that's exciting,' said Shalaya Kipp, a former Olympic distance runner and NCAA champion who co-authored the study. 'It's going to not only draw more females to the sport, but it's also going to help draw more attention to female physiology and get more research done on females too. '... That's not the runner in me, but that's the scientist in me that gets really excited if we have this. Scientists are going to start working with more female athletes, and that is a big gap we have right now.' As experts in physiology and kinesiology, Kram, Kipp and their study's co-authors, Edson Soares da Silva and Wouter Hoogkamer, were already fans of running. But their pursuit of whether a female sub-4 mile was possible began in earnest in 2023 while watching Kipyegon run her 4:07 world record while using pacers for only half the race. 'It really stood out to us that this was a very fast race — a world record, of course — but she had terrible drafting,' said Kipp, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Mayo Clinic. 'We're track nerds, and we watched that, and we're like, 'Well, what if? What if?' And then we were like, we actually could do that math.' The researchers' sub-four findings were modeled on a scenario in which Kipyegon would draft off a team of all-female pacers, in part for the gender-breaking symbolism it would represent, Kipp said. In that scenario, the study found that if Kipyegon could stay within about 40 inches behind a pacer in front of her, and 40 inches in front of another behind her — with a new pacing team swapping in halfway through — it would create an aerodynamic 'pocket' in which she would face the least wind resistance. Under those conditions, Kipyegon could run 3:59.37, the paper concluded — the exact time run by Roger Bannister in 1954 when he, using pacers for more than 80% of the race, became the first person to ever break the sub-4 barrier. Less remembered is that also in 1954, Diane Leather became the first woman to break the 5-minute barrier in the mile. It took more than half a century for the idea of a woman running a sub-4 mile to enter the realm of possibility, however, as training, times and technology all improved. An inflection point arrived in 2016. That year, Nike became the first shoe company to combine an exceptionally bouncy new foam with rigid 'plates' in their shoes and spikes. Studies have determined such 'supershoes' require less effort to run at a given pace by absorbing the impact from each footstrike, allowing runners to rebound quicker. The breakthrough led Nike to design a different moonshot race, dubbed 'Breaking2,' in which Kenyan superstar Eliud Kipchoge attempted to become the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours. He came up 25 seconds short during his first try, in 2017. In his second attempt, three years later, Kipchoge ran 1:59.40. The times do not count as an official world record because the carefully tailored attempt did not meet the standards of the sport's global governing body, but it represented a seismic shift in what was possible all the same. It was also a sign of things to come. 'We opened the 2016 floodgates,' Kipp said, 'and we saw these times dropping.' Of the 50 fastest miles run by women all-time, 33 have been run since 2016, including 10 of the top 11. The world record of 4:12.56 had stood since 1996 until Sifan Hassan ran 0.23 of a second faster in 2019. Four years later, Kipyegon shattered Hassan's world record by a stunning 4.69 seconds in Monaco. In Paris this week, Kipyegon will wear custom-made Nike supershoe spikes as well as a speedsuit and custom bra designed to reduce drag. Kipyegon is unique in that her stride appears effortless, as if floating, Kipp said. Yet what matters most, Kram and Kipp said, is whether Kipyegon has improved at staying tucked in behind her pacers. Nike did not consult with Kram, Kipp or their research team on the technical details of Kipyegon's attempt. How the sportswear giant will handle the number and gender of the pacers has led to significant intrigue. Stadiums hosting professional meets feature a metal 'rail' on the inside of the first lane, separating the track from the infield. Because Paris's Stade Charlety has little rubberized track surface inside of the rail, it's unlikely it will have the space needed to use the type of 'full arrowhead' formation it employed in its attempt to help Kipchoge break two hours in the marathon. Kram wonders if Nike will employ a 'half arrowhead' or perhaps even the model the researchers studied, with one in front and one behind. He and Kipp will also be watching for how Kipyegon and her pacers line up at the start; how relaxed she appears while pushing an unprecedented pace; and, nearing the finish, when the pacers will peel away to allow Kipyegon to finish alone. 'I'm going to be watching to make sure that she's in the pocket, and that the pacers don't get too excited,' Kram said. '... In the first 200 (meters) you can ruin your chances for the mile. If she goes out and runs 27 (seconds), she's cooked. She's got to go out in 29, 29-high. 'If she comes through 1,200 in 3 minutes, I think she's going to get it. Other people are saying, 'Oh, that's when she's going to die.' But I believe in our numbers and our calculations.' Kipchoge and his training partners wore T-shirts featuring 'Breaking4' and Kipyegon's image during training recently. 'It's been an honor for us to support (Kipyegon) as she prepares to achieve the unthinkable and to break down the barriers of human performance,' Kipchoge wrote on Instagram. 'Faith is a true inspiration for our world. If there's one person to do it, it is you. Go for it!' The race also comes at a significant moment for Nike itself. The company's roots are in running — it was founded by a middle-distance runner, Phil Knight, and his collegiate track coach — and more runners finished distance races in 2024 wearing the brand than any other, according to an industry group survey. In recent years, however, Nike's shelf space and market share among running shoes has been challenged by newcomers such as Hoka and On. Kipyegon's sub-4 attempt will come on the same day that Nike is scheduled to host a quarterly earnings call. In the days before Kipyegon's race, Kram acknowledged having nerves over how the study's findings would fare in a real-life test. Many of his previous studies had received scant attention from the wider public, he said. February's sub-4 paper, by comparison, had drawn global attention. 'Even if we don't go below four, how exciting is it just to have this attempt?' Kipp said. 'Is it really going to be a failure if she runs, you know, 4:01, 4:02? It's still going to be a big deal. "That's how Eliud Kipchoge's first sub-2 (marathon) attempt was. It wasn't perfect, but it lowered the standard, and it made us realize, if we can get closer we can do it.'
Global News
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Global News
Canada election 2025: Regina-Wascana
See more sharing options Send this page to someone via email Share this item on Twitter Share this item via WhatsApp Share this item on Facebook Regina-Wascana is a federal riding located in Saskatchewan. This riding is currently represented by Conservative MP Michael Kram who first took office in 2019. Kram collected 19,261 votes, winning 49.9 per cent of the vote in the 2021 federal election. Voters will decide who will represent Regina-Wascana in Saskatchewan during the upcoming Canadian election on April 28, 2025. Visit this page on election night for a complete breakdown of up to the minute results. Candidates Conservative: Michael Kram (Incumbent) Liberal: Jeffrey Walters NDP: Kaitlyn Stadnyk Green: Kimberly Epp People's Party: Peter Bruce
Telegraph
26-02-2025
- Science
- Telegraph
How a woman could run a mile in four minutes – emulating Roger Bannister's feat 70 years on
Scientists have calculated how a woman could be the first to run a mile in under four minutes, emulating Roger Bannister who accomplished the feat more than 70 years ago. Bannister became the first athlete to break the barrier when he completed a mile in three minutes and 59.4 seconds. No woman has ever managed it but the world record was set in 2023 by Kenyan middle- and long-distance runner Faith Kipyegon, who is also the current world record holder for the 1,500 metres and the former world record holder for the 5,000m. Her mile time of 4:07.64 requires a 3.19 per cent faster pace to achieve the threshold. Prof Roger Kram, of the University of Colorado Boulder, calculated what conditions she would need to achieve this. His calculations revealed the level of wind resistance Kipyegon faced would need to be cut by 72 per cent if she were to achieve the feat. Having a person run 1.2 metres in front of her for half the distance before being replaced by a second pacer would only reduce air resistance by 70 per cent. An attempt under these conditions would be a third of a second too slow to break the four-minute mark. However, having a second pacer running 1.2 metres behind Kipyegon would further reduce air resistance, data show. 'If Faith had a pacemaker in front of her and in back of her for the first half of the race and then had a second team of pacers come in – one in front and one behind – that she could run 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, which is coincidentally the same time Bannister ran when he broke the four-minute mile for the first time,' said Prof Kram. Bannister, who died in 2018 aged 88, was a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, but will be universally remembered for breaking the four-minute mile, a feat many thought impossible. Bannister himself later recalled: 'The four-minute mile had become rather like an Everest – a challenge to the human spirit.' It was at the Iffley Road track in Oxford on May 6 1954, running with the Amateur Athletic Association team against the university, in adverse conditions that included rain and a crosswind, that Bannister made history. He later made his pacemakers, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, godfathers to his first son. Prof Kram and his colleagues' calculations in 2016 helped inform the project, dubbed Breaking 2, to get Eliud Kipchoge to run a marathon in under two hours. He achieved the feat in 2019 but it does not count as an official world record due to the controlled race conditions. Drafting is a key component of these specialist attempts, the scientists say, as it can require lots of energy just to overcome the weight of the air molecules. Completely removing air resistance would theoretically save about 12 per cent of energy. 'The runner in front is literally pushing the air molecules out of the way,' said Prof Kram, the lead author of the study, published in Royal Society Open Science. 'Anyone from top elite to lower-level runners can benefit from adopting the optimal drafting formation for as much of their race as they can,' added Edson Soares da Silva, first author on the new paper. The team have approached Nike, who sponsor Kipyegon and also put on the Breaking 2 event, to see if they would do something similar for the four minute-mile attempt.
