for an only-on-AP story that used exclusive NCAA data and interviews to show that a new fair-catch rule intended to make college football safer was not cutting down on the number of kickoff returns as had been expected. https://bit.ly/2qkD965
for relying on a more than a decade-long relationship with track star Allyson Felix to expose a fight for equal treatment of pregnant women when it comes to sponsorship deals. https://bit.ly/2IlhEeD
We all want to perform well on the big stage, and AP’s photo team did exactly that at the recent Women’s World Cup in France, a tournament that is being called the greatest edition yet of the sport’s most prestigious event.
AP’s photo coverage was strong from the outset of the 52-match marathon, but it was the crew’s performance in the championship final that really stood out. Intelligent planning from Paris and London, and brilliant execution by specialist photographers and remote editors saw AP photos dominate play with their coverage of the 2-0 victory by the U.S.
A five-strong team of photographers – staffers Alessandra Tarantino, based in Rome; Francisco Seco, Brussels; and Francois Mori, Paris; joined by freelancers Vincent Michel and Claude Paris – won the day in a manner arguably even more decisive than the U.S. women.
The list of front pages is long and includes prestigious titles like The New York Times, L’Equipe, The Guardian, The Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle.
For a performance that befitted the biggest stage in the world on July 7, the team of Tarantino, Seco, Mori, Michel and Paris – with international AP support – shares AP’s Best of the Week.
for a months-long project by AP Sports to create profiles of many of the athletes who will be starring at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and ended up with an exclusive series giving fans an inside look with more than two dozen videos about what makes an Olympian. https://wintergames.ap.org/the-olympians
for an in-depth, only-on-AP look at how marquee African-American NFL players feel deeply affected by racial profiling in America. http://bit.ly/2BiwcsE
interviewed Spanish league president Javier Tebas following a surprise announcement by outgoing Barcelona team president Josep Bartomeu promoting the idea of a European Super League to be played only by elite clubs. The league would compete against the Champions League and could hurt domestic leagues and smaller clubs. Tebas is the most outspoken critic of the Super League idea in Europe.The day after the embattled Barcelona president dropped the surprising announcement, Madrid sports writer Azzoni landed the first exclusive interview with the Spanish league president. Tebas added fuel to the discussion by saying that Bartomeu was being directed by Real Madrid president Florentino PĂ©rez, whom he called the architect of the idea. The interview was picked up by nearly all Spanish dailies, including Marca, AS, Mundo Deportivo and El PaĂs, and was also cited in sports shows. https://bit.ly/3eruEhz
Building on his recent coverage of the collapse of the Super League, AP global soccer writer Rob Harris knew he needed to attend Sunday’s match between two teams that were part of the failed breakaway league — Manchester United and Liverpool — amid rising fan anger at the clubs.
Reporters were prevented from entering the stadium hours before the scheduled kickoff, with most waiting outside the entrance to Old Trafford. But Harris looped around the opposite side of the stadium to get closer to the expected protests.
What followed was a multiformat win. As the the crowd grew unruly, eventually breaking into the stadium and onto the field, lighting flares and lobbing bottles, Harris phoned in text and uploaded video from the melee, including the start of clashes between fans and police. He and a pair of stringers supplemented with photos. On an important day for Premier League coverage, Harris’ video was featured in major networks’ coverage, and AP’s text alert on the postponement of the game beat even Britain’s top agency.
For all-formats command of his beat under difficult circumstances, and significant wins against the competition, Harris earns AP’s Best of the Week honors.
A photographer needs more than a good eye to do the job.
On Friday night, August 4, Los Angeles-based photographer Mark J. Terrill landed the AP a scoop with sharp hearing.
In the eighth inning of the Angels’ game against the Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles’ CJ Cron made a diving stop of Matt Joyce’s hard-hit line drive, which elicited loud cheers from the crowd in Anaheim. As Joyce ran back to the dugout Terrill heard the Oakland player in a heated exchange with a fan, cursing at the fan using a gay slur.
Terrill's reporting was used by AP's stringer covering the game for Sports, and expanded by Baseball Writer Ron Blum who recognized the importance of the incident. The AP story went unmatched overnight. Even after the A's addressed the incident, most media outlets continued to cite the AP story throughout.
For their enterprising efforts, Terrill and Blum split this week’s $300 Best of the States award.
for an exclusive one-on-one interview in which former NBA star Kevin Garnett gave AP exclusive details about his anger with the Minnesota Timberwolves owner and described his foray into TV, leading to a pair of widely used and credited stories. https://apnews.com/bcd39c3988a84e288bda5c7b7ae5c5c...
for revealing details about the Russian doping scheme contained in hundreds of pages of emails and for breaking the related news that the sledding world championships would be moved from Russia.
http://apne.ws/2hb4hAt
gave AP exclusive glimpses into the saga that led gymnast Simone Biles to drop out of most of her events.During the first week of the Olympics, sports writer Graves and national writer Clare Galofaro used source work — contacts in Biles' camp, USA Gymnastics and others — to keep AP ahead of nearly every development through eight APNewsAlerts, including Biles’ shocking decision to leave the team gymnastics competition after one vault. AP had exclusive video of Biles at her hotel for several days as the world waited to find out if she would compete again, and had live shots of her moving around Tokyo and even going shopping at a pet store. AP also delivered world-class photography of her in action and on the sidelines cheering for her teammates.Graves, AP’s authority on gymnastics, has built a relationship with Biles that precedes the Rio Games and includes U.S. championships, world championships and one-on-one interviews, giving context to the fast-breaking stories coming out of Tokyo. In May, Biles had opened up in a multiformat interview about the pressures that would eventually move her to pull out of most Tokyo Games competition. Graves also produced a comprehensive explainer on “The Twisties,” the disorientation Biles felt as she was airborne, a story Biles herself liked on Twitter.https://aplink.news/1j6https://aplink.news/ghdhttps://aplink.video/br6
for reporting that doctors assigned to soccer matches could be allowed to watch replays of collisions next season and have the game stopped to assess the potential for concussions. http://apne.ws/2eYhKr7
Through 78 days at Walt Disney World, basketball writer Tim Reynolds proved himself virtually unstoppable, turning out game stories on deadline while also spinning insightful pieces that examined the major topics of 2020, from coronavirus concerns to racial injustice issues and the presidential election – not to mention the league’s work stoppage. The so-called bubble may have confined him to an arena in central Florida, but Reynolds’ relentless NBA coverage reminded readers that sports illuminate our lives in ways big and small.
In all, Reynolds wrote an eye-popping 200-plus stories, collecting exclusives along the way. He capped his efforts with his insightful analysis of LeBron James’ legacy after James led the Lakers to their record-tying 17th NBA title.
For his exhaustive, and exhausting, work that went well beyond the games in the NBA bubble, Reynolds wins this week’s Best of the States award.
Janie McCauley, sports writer, San Francisco, for an exclusive interview with major league home run king Barry Bonds, in which he opened up for the first time about his unceremonious exit from baseball. http://apne.ws/u5o9rVI
for making AP the only major news outlet that did not have to issue a text correction following the chaos at the 2019 Kentucky Derby. The AP always sends an alert on what horse crosses the finish line first to provide breaking news to members and customers, but we never declare a winner until the race results become official. That longstanding practice paid off when Maximum Security was disqualified after this year’s race. https://bit.ly/302C5Eehttps://bit.ly/2YkkOEPhttps://bit.ly/2WAhXXY
used his longstanding contacts in the leadership of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to break the news that the organization was ready to heed the calls of its stars and won’t sanction athletes for raising their fists or kneeling on the medals stand at next year’s Tokyo Games and beyond.The USOPC knew Pells was monitoring the issue — they offered him advance interviews along with copies of their recommendations so the AP could have the story ready to publish before the official news release. Other news outlets used Pells’ story or had to scramble to match it. https://bit.ly/3gQSW5M
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
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
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
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