Category: 6. Sports

BRUSSELS (Belgium) – Belgium has announced its final roster ahead of FIBA EuroBasket 2025 following its final preparation game against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Long-time coach Dario Gjergja picks a solid squad, but without the services of its star, Retin Obasohan. So, 30 year old big man Ismael Bako will step up and take the lead as they prepare to head to Katowice.

This will mark Belgium’s 19th appearance in the EuroBasket and its sixth consecutive edition. However, they have never medaled, with their best finish coming all the way back in 1947, when they placed fourth.

Since the new format was introduced in 2015, Belgium has qualified for the Round of 16 twice, in 2015 and 2022, but failed to reach it in 2017, when a 1-4 record was good enough only for the 19th spot.

Belgium begins its EuroBasket adventure in Group D, opening against France on August 28 at 17:00 CET. They will go on to play Iceland, Slovenia, and Israel, culminating with a match-up against the hosts, Poland.

FIBA

Prince William’s plans for his future reign as King are being discussed ahead of his accession to the British throne.

The future of some young royals hangs in the balance as the Prince of Wales’ plans to slim down the monarchy spark uncertainty about their roles and prospects under his reign.

According to a new report, William and Kate’s two children Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis’ future roles are also uncertain as the royal kids will ultimately choose between life as working royals or independent careers.

Future monarch George is poised to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors after embarking on a distinguished path of service and duty that will likely begin with a stint in the military.

However, the direction taken by his younger siblings, Charlotte, 10, and Louis, seven, is less certain as they are charting their own unique courses, their futures full of promise and possibility.

“William and Catherine are modern parents. They may have their thoughts, but I think they’ll wait to see what the children want to do,” a former senior aide told The i Paper.

The royal insiders went on to add that the possibility of Charlotte and Louis building careers outside the monarchy has not been ruled out.

The question of the younger Wales children’s future comes as Prince William is preparing for a slimmed-down monarchy. When he becomes King, the number of working royals is forecast to fall to around five or six.

There are also speculations that William’ cousins, Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie and Zara Tindal may also struggle to win status of working royals in his reign.

Currently, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their three children are enjoying summer break at Balmoral with King Charles and other senior members of the royal family.

The Make America Healthy Again movement has generated a lot of discussion about public health. But the language MAHA proponents use to describe health and disease has also raised concerns among the disability and chronic illness communities.

I’m a researcher studying the rhetoric of health and medicine – and, specifically, the rhetoric of risk. This means I analyze the language used by public officials, institutions, health care providers and other groups in discussing health risks to decode the underlying beliefs and assumptions that can affect both policy and public sentiment about health issues.

As a scholar of rhetoric and the mother of an autistic child, in the language of MAHA I hear a disregard for the humanity of people with disabilities and a shift from supporting them to blaming them for their needs.

Such language goes all the way up to the MAHA movement’s highest-level leader, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is clearly evident in the report on children’s health published in May 2025 by the MAHA Commission, which was established by President Donald Trump and is led by Kennedy, as well as in the MAHA Commission’s follow-up draft recommendations, leaked on Aug. 15, 2025.

Like many people, I worry that the MAHA Commission’s rhetoric may signal a coming shift in how the federal government views the needs of people with disabilities – and its responsibilities for meeting them.

Personal choice in health

One key concept for understanding the MAHA movement’s rhetoric, introduced by a prominent sociologist named Ulrich Beck, is what sociologists now call individualization of risk. Beck argued that modern societies and governments frame almost all health risks as being about personal choice and responsibility. That approach obscures how policies made by large institutions – such as governments, for example – constrain the choices that people are able to make.

In other words, governments and other institutions tend to focus on the choices that individuals make to intentionally deflect from their own responsibility for the other risk factors. The consequence, in many cases, is that the institution is off the hook for any responsibility for negative outcomes.

Beck, writing in 1986, pointed to nuclear plants in the Soviet Union as an example. People who lived near them reported health issues that they suspected were caused by radiation. But the government denied the existence of any evidence linking their woes to radiation exposure, implying that lifestyle choices were to blame. Some scholars have identified a similar dynamic in the U.S. today, where the government emphasizes personal responsibility while downplaying the effects of public policy on health outcomes.

A shift in responsibility

Such a shift in responsibility is evident in how MAHA proponents, including Kennedy, discuss chronic illness and disabilities – in particular, autism.

In its May 2025 report on children’s health, the MAHA Commission describes the administration’s views on chronic diseases in children. The report notes that the increased prevalence in “obesity, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, mental health, autoimmune disorders and allergies” are “preventable trends.” It also frames the “major drivers” of these trends as “the food children are eating, the chemicals they are exposed to, the medications they are taking, and various changes to their lifestyle and behavior, particularly those related to physical activity, sleep and the use of technology.”

Notably, it makes no mention of systemic problems, such as limited access to nutritious food, poor air quality and lack of access to health care, despite strong evidence for the enormous contributions these factors make to children’s health. And regarding neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, it makes no mention of genetics, even though decades of research has found that genetics accounts for most of the risk of developing autism.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with studying the environmental factors that might contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. In fact, many researchers believe that autism is caused by complex interactions between genes and environmental factors. But here’s where Beck’s concept of individualization becomes revealing: While the government is clearly not responsible for the genetic causes of chronic diseases, this narrow focus on lifestyle and environmental factors implies that autism can be prevented if these factors are altered or eliminated.

While this may sound like great news, there are a couple of problems. First, it’s simply not true. Second, the Trump administration and Kennedy have canceled tens of millions of dollars in research funding for autism – including on environmental causes – replacing it with an initiative with an unclear review process. This is an unusual move if the goal is to identify and mitigate environmental risk factors And finally, the government could use this claim to justify removing federally funded support systems that are essential for the well-being of autistic people and their families – and instead focus all its efforts on eliminating processed foods, toxins and vaccines.

People with autism and their families are already carrying a tremendous financial burden, even with the current sources of available support. Cuts to Medicaid and other funding could transfer the responsibility for therapies and other needs to individual families, leaving many of them to struggle with paying their medical bills. But it could also threaten the existence of an entire network of health care providers that people with disabilities rely on.

Even more worrisome is the implication that autism is a kind of damage caused by the environment rather than one of many normal variations in human neurological diversity – framing people with autism as a problem that society must solve.

How language encodes value judgments

Such logic sets off alarm bells for anyone familiar with the history of eugenics, a movement that began with the idea of improving America by making its people healthier and quickly evolved to make judgments about who is and is not fit to participate in society.

Kennedy has espoused this view of autism throughout his career, even recently claiming that people with autism “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem.”

Even if organic foods and a toxin-free household were the answer to reducing the prevalence of autism, the leaked MAHA Commission strategy report steers clear of recommending government regulation in industries such as food and agriculture, which would be needed to make these options affordable and widely available.

Instead, MAHA’s supposed interventions would remain lifestyle choices – and expensive ones, at that – left for individual families to make for themselves.

Just asking questions

Kennedy and other MAHA proponents also employ another powerful rhetorical tactic: raising questions about topics that have already reached a scientific consensus. This tactic frames such questions as pursuits of truth, but their purpose is actually to create doubt. This tactic, too, is evident in the MAHA Commission’s reports.

This practice of “just asking questions” while ignoring already established answers is widely referred to as “sealioning.” The tactic, named for a notorious sea lion in an online comic called Wondermark, is considered a form of harassment. Like much of the rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement, it
serves to undermine public trust in science and medicine. This is partly due to a widespread misunderstanding of scientific research – for example, understanding that scientific disagreement does not necessarily indicate that science as a process is flawed.

MAHA rhetoric thus continues a troubling trend in the anti-vaccine movement of calling all of science and Western medicine into question in order to further a specific agenda, regardless of the risks to public health.

The MAHA Commission’s goals are almost universally appealing – healthier food, healthier kids and a healthier environment for all Americans. But analyzing what is implied, minimized or left out entirely can illuminate a much more complex political and social agenda.

It has been over a decade since Daria Kasatkina competed at the Youth Olympic Games of Nanjing 2014, and a lot has changed since.

The tennis player went on to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympics, won the 2020-21 Billie Jean King Cup with Russia before switching to represent Australia, where she has settled since leaving her birth country.

Kasatkina made the podium in the People’s Republic of China 11 years ago, where she took the girls’ doubles silver medal alongside Anastasiya Komardina. So, when Olympics.com ask her to recount her days in Nanjing, what stands out?

“It was a great experience,” Kasatkina replies, “After that, the Olympics in Rio [were] very similar in terms of the Olympic Village, the structure of the venues and everything. I remember that we had fun there.

“When you’re a junior, wherever you go your friends are here like your teammates, you will have fun anyway. I remember we played the mixed doubles with [Andrey] Rublev, we had a chance. He won singles in three sets cramping so he couldn’t stand for the doubles – at least we got a medal in doubles.”

Like Kasatkina, two-time Youth Olympic medallist Rublev has gone on to become an established player, a mixed doubles champion at Tokyo 2020 in 2021. They may have missed out on Youth Olympic gold together – the top seeds lost in the second round to the eventual silver medallists – yet it was an experience that taught a valuable lesson.

The 28-year-old explains, “That was the moment we realised that it doesn’t matter – in singles, doubles or mixed doubles – if you get a medal, it’s all right.” That medal remains at her parents’ house, along with most of Kasatkina’s junior and professional career trophies. “I know they will take good care of them,” she says, “I am calm this way.”

• Mbappe scored two goals in win over Oviedo

• Coach says Mbappe has gained four kilos

• Claims the overall feeling is good

WHAT HAPPENED?

Mbappe led Madrid to a comfortable win as he scored two goals in the 3-0 win against Real Oviedo on Sunday. The striker has looked agile and sharp in his last two fixtures, but coach Alonso claims the French forward has gained a few kilos that he previously lost during the Club World Cup when he was hospitalised with gastroenteritis.

Advertisement

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Alonso previously praised Mbappe as he highlighted noticeable positive changes in his mindset and ambition. He further claimed that the reason he is backing the player’s form is because of a combination of two things: first, he has already spent a season at Madrid and now wants more, and second, maybe because of donning the iconic No. 10. Mbappe’s two-goal contribution further cements his form and provides Alonso a much-needed confidence boost.

WHAT ALONSO SAID

Asked about what has changed about Mbappe, the Spanish manager told reporters: “He’s gained four kilos back. He had lost four at the World Championships. He looks good; I love watching him do those laps. When we manage to maintain those distances, everyone closer to each other, we find each other. He did very well today, and the other day too. We’re still looking at what to correct, but the feeling is good.”

Advertisement

WHAT NEXT FOR MADRID?

The ex-Bayer Leverkusen coach was clear about making changes in the future. He stressed that every player will get the opportunity to play. The substitutions depend “game to game”, and his intention is for “everyone to contribute.” Madrid will face Mallorca next in the league on August 31 before the international break kicks in.

The 2025 World Triathlon Championship Series is four races in, with three races – and a possible 3,000 points – and the Championship Finals to come. The first of those is Sunday’s sprint-distance newcomer WTCS French Riviera, and there are fireworks ahead as we kickstart a momentous second half of the season.

Watch the men’s WTCS French Riviera on Sunday 31 August from 14.45 CEST on TriathlonLive.tv

Top of the rankings stands Matt Hauser, on form and on fire with two golds and two silvers so far to his name this year, the Australian is a little under 300 points clear of Brazilian Miguel Hidalgo and 430 ahead of Vasco Vilaça (POR).

One of Hauser’s silvers came way back in February behind Hayden Wilde, the Kiwi who began his season with the gold in WTCS Abu Dhabi, before a bad bike accident took him out of Yokohama, Alghero and Hamburg. Just three months later, Wilde was already back to winning ways at T100 London and is now eyeing a remarkable double of T100 and WTCS in the French Riviera.

Then there is defending World Champion Alex Yee. The Brit has yet to step on the blue carpet in 2025, April’s debut London Marathon mission taking the Paris Olympic Champ out of early season contention. But Yee is still left with three races in which to try and haul himself into a title defence before the Championship Finals and few would bet against him.

On Sunday 31 August, the three men will line up for the first time since last year’s Championship Finals, ready to tackle a brand new WTCS French Riviera course with 1,000 points on the line.

Should Yee or Wilde win this weekend, surely the call of a possible world title in Wollongong would be too loud to ignore, and the heat on WTCS Karlovy Vary and WTCS Weihai would ramp up even further.

What Hauser has in spades is momentum, form and race sharpness, dominating the WTCS podiums in 2025. But how have the three favourites stacked up against each other in recent years and how much can that tell us about what may lie ahead in France this weekend?  

When they have raced together, Yee has finished ahead of the other two on five occasions versus Wilde’s four times and Hauser’s once (that unforgettable rollercoaster ride of a Championship Finals Pontevedra in 2023). In terms of total wins since the start of the 2023 season, Yee has five, Wilde and Hauser both have four.

Only Wilde and Hidalgo have managed to unpick the lock to beating Hauser over the run this year, but earlier this month Yee dropped a 5km personal best of 13m13s on the track in Belgium that once again made the triathlon world’s mouths drop.

Of course, as the number one Hauser will have his pick of the start positions. Conversely, Wilde starts in 18^th place and Yee will be down in 39^th – a small win for the Series leader but one that could have a big impact on the early stages of the race. 

The Aussie will definitely want to work with the likes of Hidalgo and Chase McQueen to put as much time into his main rivals as possible over the 750m swim, and from there it is it’s going to be box-office all the way to the line as the 2025 season heats right up once more on Sunday! 

LONDON (Great Britain) – Great Britain have officially confirmed their 12-man roster for the upcoming FIBA EuroBasket 2025, headlined by the team’s veteran center Gabe Olaseni.

Head coach Marc Steutel finalized the squad after their last preparation game on the road to FIBA EuroBasket 2025, which will start for Great Britain in Tampere.

Before their final warm-up match against Estonia in Tallinn, Great Britain had a rough preparation ahead of FIBA EuroBasket, losing four consecutive games to France, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia.

However, they boosted their positivity by beating the Estonian national team on the road, finally standing at 1-4.

Great Britain have never made it through the Group Phase in their previous six appearances at FIBA EuroBasket – the last one happening in 2022, where they finished at the bottom in 24th position.

However, Gabe Olaseni is a dominant force under the basket, bringing experience to a team full of interesting assets. Myles Hesson and Akwasi Yeboah will also be ones to watch for them.

The British national team will play the Group Phase in Tampere, alongside Germany, Lithuania, Finland, Montenegro, and Sweden in Group B.

They will begin their campaign against Lithuania on August 27 at 12:30 CET.

FIBA

Of the 12 players who successfully made it through US Open qualifying last week, Indonesia’s Janice Tjen garnered some of the most attention.

The 23-year-old’s rise since graduating from Pepperdine University with a degree in sociology last year had been meteoric. Unranked last May, Tjen won 100 out of 113 matches over the next 16 months to rise to No. 149 this week, sweeping up 13 ITF titles in the process. But her opener against No. 25 seed Veronika Kudermetova represented another step up in level. It was not only Tjen’s tour-level debut, but the first time she’d ever faced a Top 50 opponent.

US Open: Draws | Scores | Order of play

Tjen responded brilliantly, upsetting Kudermetova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 despite losing a break lead in the second set, and setting up a popcorn second-round encounter with Emma Raducanu. The seventh Indonesian woman to compete in a Grand Slam main draw in the Open Era, Tjen also snapped a long drought for her country at this level of the sport, becoming:

• The first Indonesian woman to win a Grand Slam match since Angelique Widjaja at Roland Garros 2023
• The first Indonesian woman to defeat a Top 30 player since Widjaja’s defeat of Patty Schnyder at Indian Wells 2003
• The first Indonesian woman to win a US Open main-draw match since Widjaja’s defeat of Anna Kournikova in the 2002 first round
• If Tjen beats Raducanu, she will be the first Indonesian woman to reach the third round of a major since former No. 19 Yayuk Basuki at Wimbledon 2000.

“I feel proud to be able to do this for my country,” Tjen told press afterwards. “Hopefully like this, by me making appearance here, will inspire more tennis player — like, younger kids to play tennis and also believing that they can be here too.”

Growing up in Jakarta, Tjen got her start in tennis by accident. Her friend, Priska Nugroho — then one of the country’s top juniors, and the 2020 Australian Open girls’ doubles champion with Alexandra Eala — persuaded her to try the sport. Tjen’s parents quickly acquiesced.

“My parents were just like, ‘Yeah, just go play the sport, just having exercise,’ so I’m not going to be in my room just doing nothing,” Tjen recalled with a smile.

Tjen patterned her game after a former World No. 1

Against Kudermetova, Tjen excelled with a throwback game style that’s become all too rare in tennis: sliced backhands, a powerful forehand with which she struck a slew of lethal angled winners and an eagerness to get to the net, where she won 20 out of 30 points.

“Me and my coach have been working on that,” Tjen said with satisfaction afterwards. “Just making sure that if it is a 50/50, we’re going in, coming into the net. And I would say we have a pretty good percentage of winning up at the net, so we would want to make more appearance up there.”

It’s all reminiscent of none other than former World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, who retired in 2022 — and it’s no surprise that Tjen has consciously patterned her game after the three-time major champion.

“I have been hearing that a lot,” Tjen said. “She’s, I would say, my role model. I would watch a little bit of her matches and try to copy what works for me, what’s not, and just trying to understand her game a little bit more.”

Tjen and Eala are both making history for south-east Asia in New York

On a strong day for south-east Asian tennis, Tjen’s breakthrough was mirrored by none other than her former junior rival Eala, who delivered Day 1’s only other seeded upset, knocking out No. 14 Clara Tauson in a Grandstand barnburner. Eala, the first Filipina to win a Grand Slam main-draw match in the Open Era, remembered Tjen well from their junior rivalry.

“Janice is super nice,” the 20-year-old told press. “I’ve known her for quite a long time. Growing up in the same region, we would run into each other a lot in the same tournaments. You know, I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with her recently. I know she was in college. I’m so happy for her, and it’s nice to see someone that you grew up with in the biggest stages in the world.”

Eala had the narrow edge in their 2018-19 junior days, leading their head-to-head at that level 2-1.

Tjen was encouraged by her college coaches and a fellow Indonesian player

Going pro was never an automatic decision for Tjen. After finishing with juniors, the travel costs involved meant that she and her parents opted for the college tennis pathway — which she feels paid off after her coaches at Pepperdine University helped to develop her game. And after spending her college career contemplating whether or not she should turn pro, they were also instrumental in encouraging her.

“The coaches at Pepperdine told me I think you should give it a try, at least for two years,” she said. “So I trust them, and here I am!”

The only other Indonesian player at the US Open — doubles No. 48 Aldila Sutjiadi — was also a key figure in Tjen’s emergence.

“I am really, really close with Aldila,” Tjen said. “She’s always been like a good older sister to me, taking care of me, guiding me, and telling me, ‘This is what you need to do.’ She’s also one of the people that convinced me that I should give it a try. It’s very nice to be around another Indonesian here.”

In her spare time, Tjen is a Mario Kart fan

Tennis isn’t Tjen’s only competitive endeavor. In her downtime, she and her coach continue to battle hard — playing Mario Kart.

“We’ve been grinding on that one,” she told press.

Only one on the video game’s characters will do for Tjen, though — the green dinosaur Yoshi.

“I’ve been into Mario Kart since I was reall young, and it’s always my go-to character,” she said. “I would be a little bit not happy if somebody took that. I would be like, ‘Nope, that’s my character.’”