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By all accounts the Paris Olympics were a great success. We were treated to a magnificent sport spectacle, the world’s greatest athletes at their best. The display of sportsmanship was fulfilling, a tribute to the competitors. The Olympics are for the...

The next time we tune in to hear the drums of NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage, the torch will be lit in California for the first Summer Olympics in the United States in 34 years. And from the perspective of those studying the business of sports, the...

The last time Paris hosted the Summer Olympics was 100 years ago. If you were to walk into one of the dining halls at that time you would not be able to predict which sport an athlete participated. Swimmers looked like discus throwers and distance...

The marathon was not part of the ancient Olympics but was introduced as a special event in the 1896 games. Seventeen participants from five nations started the race but only nine finished. One American entered but did not finish. The original race was...

Running in the kind of hot weather we’re having these days can be fun. It can also be uncomfortable, exhausting, depleting. In extreme cases it’s even dangerous. Seriously, how do you exercise in the heat?Part of the answer is obvious. Dress lightly....

With the Summer Olympics in Paris upon us, expect the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to start complaining about ambush marketing. Ambush what, you ask? Ambush marketing – it’s a term unique to the business world of sport. History has it that...

(Note: Fit To Play columnist Jim Johnson will lend his voice on the 2024 Summer Olympics throughout the next month with special features pertaining to specific events and what goes into them for the athletes competing in Paris.)Athletes from all over...

In 1972, UMass graduate Charlotte Lettis, then 22 years old and living in Amherst, became the first women’s winner of the Mt. Washington Road Race. A pioneer in the evolution of women’s long-distance running from fitness jogging to hardcore...

The ancient Olympics ended in AD 393 and for 1,500 years there were no games until Pierre de Coubertin facilitated the revival of the modern Olympics in 1896 in Athens. Since then, the Olympics have grown from 241 athletes representing 14 countries to...

In less than two months, thousands of athletes from around the world will converge on Paris for the Summer Olympics. To me, the Olympics have always been the epitome of sport. Yes, we have the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the World Cup, but...

You can probably beat me in the Bridge of Flowers Road Race on Aug. 10. Here’s why:I like running up hills. Somehow my gait and posture seem well adapted to uphill running. In many cases if someone is the same speed as I am on flat ground, I can run...

Artificial intelligence is experiencing a renaissance. Tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are becoming a daily part of conversations. AI’s history stretches back nearly as far as computers themselves, but the advent of generative AI has made it more...

Some suggest that pickleball is a fad but I believe it is here to stay. After all, some reports indicate that 36 million people played pickleball last year compared to around 24 million tennis players. Parks departments are inundated with requests to...

The average sports-page reader knows that the fastest runners in a major marathon are likely to be Kenyan or Ethiopian. But another part of the Boston and London marathons is dominated by northern Europeans, plus Americans, Japanese, Australians and...

About 10 years ago, the two major urban centers of central and western Massachusetts decided to engage in new regional industrial policy to spur on their local economies. Worcester and Springfield had been effectively hollowed up by decades of...

That hill in the third mile is a little toughie. You’ve been pacing yourself around the large field next to the Mill River, keeping mind, lungs and legs together, and ahead lurks the abrupt turn into the woods where the trail rises gradually, then...

Exercise prescriptions first started in 1968 when Ken Cooper recommended that everyone amass 40 points a week to achieve aerobic fitness. For example, this could be achieved by running one eight-minute mile a day, five days a week. Cooper’s...

This Sunday, the March Madness brackets will be set, enabling millions of sport consumers to place bets that will total in the billions of dollars (you should also expect to see some ads from the sports books…).This week, in recognition of March...

I have studied the human body for around 60 years and I am still in awe. Evolution has given us awesome bodies that move with fluidity and grace, withstand heat, cold, and altitude, and possess the ability to adapt to almost any environment. Our...

The running world barely had time to marvel at how 24-year-old Kelvin Kiptum came within sight of breaking the two-hour barrier in the marathon before what promised to be a thrilling career came to a sudden end last month in a car crash that took...