NBC was forced to issue an apology after accidentally referring to Swedish athlete Elis Lundholm with the wrong pronouns during its coverage of the Winter Olympics.
The 23-year-old skier, who was born as a woman but identifies as male, was competing in the moguls even in the women’s freestyle division in Milan-Cortina.
During Lundholm’s run, the Olympic international feed, which was broadcast on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock, referred to the athlete as ‘she’ multiple times.
‘Getting off course here though…oh she just skids out of that gate,’ the commentary of Lundholm’s run said. ‘She’s going to hop up and go around to make sure she does not DNF as she continues down the line here.’
NBC quickly removed the footage from the platforms and its social media channels, apologizing for the error.
‘NBC Sports takes this matter seriously,’ NBC said, via Outsports. ‘Today we streamed an international feed with non-NBCUniversal commentators who misgendered Olympian Elis Lundholm. We apologize to Elis and our viewers, and we have removed the replay of that feed.’
NBC was forced to issue an apology after misgendering Swedish athlete Elis Lundholm
The skier, who was born as a woman but identifies as male, was competing in the moguls
Lundholm’s participation is allowed under the current International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines, making him the only openly trans athlete competing at this year’s Games.
But after making a mistake on the snowy slopes of Livigno, Lundholm finished 29th with a score of just 12.05 on Tuesday.
However, the trans Swede still had the chance to qualify for the final round again on Wednesday morning due to the nuances of the qualification moguls.
While the top 10 scored athletes on Tuesday receive an automatic bye, the remaining skiers will take part in a second round the following morning. Those who made the top 10 will then join the existing finalists, with the chance of winning a medal on Wednesday afternoon.
But it wasn’t to be for Lundholm, who finished 25th overall following the second qualification round and missed out on the chance of competing for a medal.
Lundholm has previously spoken out about his comfort at competing in female-only divisions.
‘I’ve always been treated well,’ he told Swedish TV channel SVT previously.
‘I came out and identified as a man. But I compete against women because they have the same qualifications as me. And that’s okay with everyone.’
The Swede, a transgender man, is the first trans competitor at the Winter Olympics
His participation for the women’s team is in line with the IOC’s 2021 ‘Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations’.
Those guidelines allow trans athletes to compete in the Olympics after being cleared by their own national sports federations.
Before he took to the slopes, Lundholm also addressed criticism surrounding his participation.
‘Of course it’s something I thought about,’ he said. ‘You can hear the voices out there. But then I do my thing, and I don’t give a damn.’
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NBC apologizes and deletes footage after misgendering trans athlete on Winter Olympics feed
Manchester United caretaker manager Michael Carrick (Picture: Getty)
Manchester United are leaning towards making an external managerial appointment despite Michael Carrick’s impressive return to Old Trafford.
United have taken 13 points out of a possible 15 since Carrick was appointed caretaker manager last month, winning four games in a row before Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with West Ham.
Manchester United were sixth in the Premier League when they decided to pull the plug on former boss Ruben Amorim, who had a disappointing 14-month reign.
While that represented a marked improvement on a team that finished 15th last season, United were still struggling for consistency, exiting both domestic cup competitions at the earliest possible stage.
It was not only underwhelming performances that cost Amorim his job but also his public criticism of those above him at Old Trafford in the days leading to his sacking.
Champions League qualification appeared unlikely at the time of Amorim’s departure but Carrick has taken the Red Devils back into the top-four.
Carrick’s tenure as caretaker manager started with impressive wins over title rivals Manchester City and Arsenal, before United beat Fulham and Tottenham.
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Ruben Amorim was sacked by Man Utd last month (Picture: Getty)
Manchester United were not at their best against West Ham but Benjamin Sesko’s injury-time equaliser maintained Carrick’s unbeaten record.
Carrick’s return to Old Trafford was initially only expected to be temporary, with United always planning to make a permanent appointment at the end of the season.
But United’s brilliant form under the ex-midfielder has led to calls for Carrick to be named as Amorim’s full-time replacement.
England legend Wayne Rooney, for example, has suggested Carrick will become ‘impossible’ to ignore if United’s current form continues until the end of the season.
But according to Sky Sports, Manchester United are not accelerating their plans to appoint a new manager and still do not view Carrick as the favourite for the job.
The likes of Thomas Tuchel, Carlo Ancelotti, Mauricio Pochettino, Oliver Glasner, Luis Enrique and Roberto De Zerbi have all been linked with United since Amorim’s sacking.
The Manchester Evening News claim England boss Tuchel is emerging as the ‘preferred choice’ of Old Trafford decision-makers.
Tuchel took charge of the Three Lions last year but is only contracted to England until after this summer’s World Cup, meaning he will likely be available come July.
England boss and Man Utd target Thomas Tuchel (Picture: Getty)
Before becoming England manager, Tuchel had spells at Bayern Munich, PSG, Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea, where he won the Champions League and Club World Cup.
While much could change before the end of the season, overlooking Carrick would be fairly surprising as he already appears to have the backing of the United squad.
Captain Bruno Fernandes has repeatedly praised the former England midfielder since he took over and goalkeeper Senne Lammens followed suit after the West Ham draw.
‘We can be happy with the first five games with him as a coach,’ Amorim’s £18m summer signing said.
Gary Neville reveals Man Utd’s ‘official position’ on manager search
‘I actually spoke to the club, because ultimately the club get asked all the time from journalists and broadcasters, what’s the position of the club.
‘It’s a very difficult situation, you’ve got a massive movement now with what’s happened towards giving Carrick the job, saying that really he should be considered.
‘That’s only going to build the more that he wins and the more that he gets closer to Champions League football. I asked the club what is the official position of the football club in terms of what you’re saying publicly to everybody else.
‘I have to say I thought their answer was pretty good. They said they’ve actually begun the process now, starting to look for another manager, which I thought right.
Manchester United legend Gary Neville (Picture: Getty)
‘It’s a very difficult situation, you’ve got a massive movement now with what’s happened towards giving Carrick the job, saying that really he should be considered.
‘That’s only going to build the more that he wins and the more that he gets closer to Champions League football. That’s good to hear because you need to plan for everything.
‘They’ve started the process of speaking to and looking at other managers, building all the sorts of data and analysing who should be the next manager of the football club.
‘But what they’ve said is they’re not going to be bounced into – irrespective of wins or draws or losses on the pitch in this next couple of months – making an appointment.
‘They’re going to wait until towards the end of the season.’
‘The West Ham result was a little bit disappointing because we wanted to continue winning and now, being two weeks without a game, we wanted to go in that period with a good feeling.
‘But it’s a little bit less bad because we scored at the end. One of his [Carrick’s] strong suits is communication, being clear about what he wants. We knew what we had to do and executed the plan.
‘Man City and Arsenal were different kinds of games because we didn’t really have to make it ourselves.
‘It was more about being compact, playing from the counter and creating chances, which is one of our strong suits. We know we can do well against those teams.
‘Against Fulham and Tottenham we had to play more of our game. It was not always the prettiest, but the result was there, which is the most important thing, and something we haven’t really done all season.’
Due to being knocked out of the FA Cup by Brighton, Manchester United have almost two weeks off before they return to Premier League action on February 23 against Everton.
Lindsey Vonn’s horror crash in the women’s downhill ski event at the Winter Olympics was caused when she caught a gate with her right side, one photograph has shown.
The former Olympic champion, 41, has been left in intensive care following the incident on Sunday, although it is understood that she was transferred there for the sake of extra privacy, rather than any greater medical necessity. The US team have also stated the 2010 gold medallist is ‘stable’.
Vonn had been competing in Cortina following a six-year hiatus from the sport and only nine days on from rupturing the ACL in her left knee in a training run crash ahead of the Games.
But Vonn was just 13 seconds into her run and had rounded the second corner when she appeared to lose control.
The 41-year-old sped over a hill and careered into one of the plastic markers on the side of the track before hitting the ground. Her right leg appeared to hit the ground first, as a cloud of powder engulfed the American. Vonn then tumbled forwards again, appearing to smash her shoulder into the ground, before coming to a halt on the slope.
The Cortina crowd fell silent as medical crews arrived to attend to Vonn, who was later airlifted off the mountain.
One photo has shown the key detail behind Lindsey Vonn’s horror crash at the Winter Olympics
As Vonn sped down the mountain, she caught a ski gate with her right side before she fell
Distressing scenes then erupted, with Vonn, whose skis had not detached from her boots, seen wincing in pain as she lay on her back in the snow. The American was also heard crying out in agony as the medics placed her onto a stretcher.
And, a photo from AP, moments before Vonn’s crash, shows the skier careering into the ski gate while she was in the air and speeding down the mountain.
Her right arm appeared to be on the wrong side of the gate and the force of her body could be seen in how the ski gate had been knocked, with it seemingly snapping.
Vonn went tumbling seconds after colliding into the gate, with her body rotating 180 degrees before her heavy crash.
Organisers then began to play background music over the skier’s cries as she was lifted onto a stretcher.
An update provided by the US Ski and Snowboard Team on X later explained that Vonn had sustained an injury but was in a stable condition, before she then had surgery on a left-leg fracture.
‘Update: Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians,’ a spokesperson had said.
The 41-year-old had defied the impossible by coming back to compete after rupturing her ACL prior to the Games and had completed multiple training runs in the build-up to Sunday’s event.
While concerns have arisen over whether the 2010 Olympic champion was taking a risk in entering the competition – having undergone a reconstruction in her right knee back in 2024 and rupturing her ACL before the tournament – Vonn had made the decision to compete in Sunday’s downhill final.
Vonn was airlifted to hospital after her crash, with it revealed that she had broken her leg
Vonn, a former Olympic champion, was competing in Cortina following a six-year hiatus from the sport
She had posted a time that was 1.39 seconds off the fastest run during a training session on Friday.
The American, who has won 84 World Cups across multiple alpine skiing events during her glittering career, would improve on that on Saturday, posting a time of one minute and 38 seconds, which was 37 seconds shy of team-mate Breezy Johnson, who went on to claim gold on Sunday.
As Vonn left the gates on Sunday, her coach was heard shouting, ‘keep charging, keep pushing’.
The downhill event was subsequently suspended, with other competitors removing their skis at the top of the slope as they waited for Vonn to be evacuated.
BBC pundit and former alpine skier Chemmy Alcott was distressed by the scenes unfolding in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
‘I feel guilty that I am this emotional,’ Alcott said to the BBC. ‘I just never believed it would end in a clump at the side of the piste, not moving. What we saw was that the top of the piste is really hard for a fit athlete; she just had her right knee. It is brutal, think about her family, her team and herself.
‘We have to be realistic. The risk was really high, the risk she takes when she falls will double that, her body will not be able to take that. There is clapping and there is hope that she would be okay but they have put up some background music because it is uncomfortable.’
Her quest for Olympic glory has seen Kirsty Muir hit new heights on the frozen slopes of the Italian Alps.
But it is the depths to which she plunged in preparation for the Winter Games that Britain’s newest ski ace credits for her performances.
The 21-year-old from Aberdeen’s aerial skills ensured she qualified in third place for Monday’s final in the women’s ski slopestyle competition at Livigno Snow Park.
She was able to stay cool on the slopes in Italy after surviving a test of nerve while training at Delphy Pool near Bodmin in Cornwall last year, when she dived to a depth of 56ft and held her breath until her lips turned blue in the freezing darkness.
‘It was to put ourselves in a high-pressure situation and see how we reacted, how we managed ourselves and told our minds to chill out in this high-stress situation,’ the ski star revealed a few weeks before the Olympics began.
‘We started off just breathing on the ground, then we moved into a static tub and that’s where I held my breath for three minutes in the end,’ Muir said.
‘Then we moved into a quarry, went down a rope and ended up 17 metres down. It’s pitch black, you can’t see anything, and you start overthinking – that’s when you’ve really got to centre yourself and calm down.
‘It’s helped a lot with my skiing because I realise now that I perform a lot better when I am calmer.’
Kirsty Muir trained for the Winter Olympics by diving to a depth of 56ft and holding her breath until her lips turned blue
Pictured: Skier Kirsty Muir, one of the British stars of this year’s Winter Olympics after hitting the top three in each of her qualifying runs on Saturday to reach the final
Muir hit the top three in each of her qualifying runs on Saturday to reach the final behind Switzerland’s defending champion Mathilde Gremaud and Chinese superstar Eileen Gu.
‘I feel like my heart was maybe racing just a little bit more than usual,’ Muir said after the qualifiers.
‘After I put my first run down, I felt a bit of a relief and felt like I could just be a bit smoother in myself.
‘Just knowing I can do it when I’m feeling a little bit nervous, when I’m feeling a little bit of pressure, knowing that I can trust myself and put it down.’
Muir, who is competing at her second Olympics, will be hoping to celebrate after the final with her BMX rider boyfriend Matt Harris, 26, from Cambridgeshire – who starred in the first series of The Traitors.
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Breathtaking! British ski ace Kirsty Muir says she prepared for Winter Olympics by enduring a 56ft-deep quarry dive in freezing water
Timber and Saka missed training this week (Picture: Getty)
Mikel Arteta has provided injury updates on Jurrien Timber, Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League clash with Sunderland.
The Gunners head into the weekend after an excellent pair of results following their setback against Manchester United, thrashing Leeds United last weekend before booking their place in the Carabao Cup final with a win over Chelsea.
Injuries have been a concern, however. Saka withdrew from the Arsenal starting XI during the warm-up shortly before kick-off at Elland Road, also missing the visit of Chelsea midweek. Noni Madueke started ahead of him in both games.
Odegaard played 61 minutes against Leeds but picked up a ‘niggle’ that afternoon that saw him left out of the squad midweek.
The duo were not pictured in training on Thursday with Jurrien Timber also absent.
Speaking ahead of the visit of the Black Cats, Arteta revealed the Dutchman is ‘fine’, suggesting he is fit to start on Saturday.
While Saka is ‘much better’, Arteta suggested this weekend will come too soon for him.
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‘His hip is much better, and hopefully very soon he will be with us,’ Arteta said.
Odergaard however is set to miss out again with his manager explaining he is still ‘a few days away’.
More to follow
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Pep Guardiola claims Manchester City are at a disadvantage ahead of the Carabao Cup final (Picture: Getty)
Manchester City will seek permission for a rule change that would allow Marc Guehi to play in next month’s Carabao Cup final against Arsenal.
The January signing from Crystal Palace has slotted straight into City’s starting XI but was ineligible for last night’s comfortable 3-1 semi-final second leg win over Newcastle.
While fellow January recruit Antoine Semenyo was free to play, Guehi was prevented from featuring because he joined City after the first leg against Newcastle took place.
As things stand the England international will have to watch from the sidelines again when his new side locks horns with the current Premier League leaders on March 22, much to Guardiola’s annoyance.
Guardiola acknowledged he did not expect City to be successful, but said they will make their case regardless.
‘Why should he not play? Why not?’ Guardiola said. ‘He’s our player, we pay his salary, we hired him…
Marc Guehi will have to wait to see if he can play against Arsenal (Picture: Getty)
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‘We want to ask. I said to the club we have to ask definitely. I don’t understand the reason why he cannot play in the final of the Carabao Cup in March when he has been here a long time…
‘Of course we are going to ask because it’s pure logic. (But) to change the rule, no way. But we will try.’
Guardiola’s complaints didn’t stop at Guehi’s potential participation, however, and also made reference to his annoyance at having to travel to London for another showpiece occasion.
He said: ‘We’re going to travel to London [for the Carabao Cup final], they [Arsenal] will wait for us there; all the time we have to travel. Never [the opposition] travel to the North of England [for a Final].’
Omar Marmoush was the star for City as he scored the opening two goals of the night before Tijjani Reijnders added a third, all inside 35 minutes.
Guardiola would have been concerned by the number of chances Newcastle created after the break, but with Anthony Elanga’s 62nd-minute strike the only one they converted, City were never overly troubled.
The win continues City’s run of having played at Wembley at least once every season since 2010-11.
Omar Marmoush scored twice in Man City’s win over Newcastle (Picture: Getty)
‘I do not take it for granted,’ Guardiola said. ‘I know how difficult it is. I don’t know how many semi-finals and finals we have played in the FA Cup but it’s really good, and in 10 years five Carabao Cup finals so it’s really good: top, top, top.’
Marmoush, who previously scored a hat-trick against Newcastle, once again grabbed his chance against the Magpies with Erling Haaland starting on the bench.
‘He gives us a special quality,’ Guardiola said of the Egyptian. ‘His pace, his moments in behind, and his work ethic.’
Newcastle arrived in Manchester trailing 2-0 from the reverse fixture and knowing a strong start was essential.
Anthony Gordon’s injury compounded a miserable night for Newcastle (Picture: Getty)
Instead, they found themselves quickly 3-0 down and effectively out of it.
‘(I was) really annoyed with the first half display,’ boss Eddie Howe said. ‘We pride ourselves on being really organised and tactically we want to be able to handle any problem the opposition gives us. That first half we weren’t good enough individually and our duels were off and it gave us huge problems.’
To add to Howe’s worries, Anthony Gordon was forced off before half-time.
‘It looks like a hamstring problem,’ Howe said. ‘I don’t qute know how bad it was but it was enough for him to come off so that’s a big worry.’
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