Look at the most terrifying World Championship

(Or don't, it's scary.) Also, updates from The Darts, fencing, Gaelic football, and a long rant against England.

Big news friends, I’m MOVING TOMORROW! It’s SO EXCITING!!!!! And also I DID NOT GET ANY SLEEP BEFORE WRITING THIS!!!!! and have DECIDED TO PERMANENTLY STAY IN MY NEXT HOUSE TO AVOID THIS HELLISH EXPERIENCE EVER AGAIN!!!!

I did, however, make sure to carve out time to watch unusual sporting events in the middle of the move.

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SCROLL TO THE NEXT PART IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF HEIGHTS

Do you rank sports based on how likely you would die if you participated? Or perhaps on how much merely watching a sporting event makes your body shudder in horror? Let me introduce you to the most NOPE event in all of international sports: The high diving competition at the World Aquatics Championships. They pre-populate the pool with emergency rescue divers, just in case. (See the little guys all the way down there in the pool?)

And it just so happens that this year’s high diving world championship also featured an absolute thriller of a duel, a surprise American gold medal, and another W for a niche sports GOAT.

• The championship was held at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, where they include just about every water-related event. They have Katie Ledecky racing against Summer McIntosh, just like in the Olympics, as well as diving and water polo. But it’s also got a bunch of fringe events, like multiple forms of open-water swimming, solo artistic swimming, and the high dive.

• They need to build a separate high diving venue because the platform is NINETY FEET IN THE AIR. And the pool needs to be extra deep so the divers do not die when they hit the bottom.

• All the dives are feet first, because it’s too dangerous to expose your head to impact at those high speeds.

• And the scuba team is there in case impact with the water knocks a diver unconscious.

• In the men’s 27m competition, Team USA’s James Lichtenstein won his first World Championship on the final dive of the competition … although it would be almost as accurate to say Spain’s Carlos Gimeno lost it. The two attempted the exact same dives throughout the competition and Gimeno led the whole way, but a sliiiiight over-rotation on the final dive gave Lichtenstein a 3.6-point win and the first American championship since 2017. Here’s Gimeno after the scores popped up:

• Lichtenstein’s career started in trampoline and he was on Notre Dame’s diving team. Naturally, he got his start high diving at the holiday-themed amusement park in Santa Claus, Indiana. (I guess they have non-Christmas-related activities at the park, too.)

• The women’s high dive competition was less close because they’ve got the GOAT, Australia’s Rhiannan Iffland. A former cruise ship performer, Iffland has won five straight world championships and eight straight overall Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series titles. And yet, Iffland says she’s still a little scared every time she dives. Doesn’t show!

  

  @worldaquaticsWith a stunning performance Rhiannan Iffland secures her fifth (!) consecutive Gold Medal at the World Championships in #HighDiving 🙌 Her dive in Round 5 was the highest scoring dive of the competition! 💥#AQUASingapore25 #sportstiktok

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• I hope they give Rhiannan a 50-foot-tall medal podium when she wins gold. Putting her on a normal one 2.5 feet above the ground feels rude.

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🎶 It’s Staying Home 🎶

England repeated as Women’s Euros champions, the greatest thing to happen to England in nearly two weeks since the Oasis reunion tour started. The Lionesses beat Spain on penalty kicks in the final, and for the second-straight game and the second-straight Euros, the winner came off Chloe Kelly’s foot. (Her signature run-up with the little crow-hop … iconic.)

And I’m going to be honest, I’m so mad about it. I’m just so mad about it. The English won back-to-back-to-back knockout stage matches in which they looked clearly worse than their opposition, stealing this tournament like it’s a priceless artifact they’re going to put in the British Museum and refuse to return to its original country because the 17th Earl of Chestwick-Hampstershire “found” it on an expedition in 1847.

• England led for exactly one minute during its three knockout round matches. You’ve probably taken about three minutes to read this far into the newsletter, which is about three times as long as England held a lead in the knockout stages.

• England trailed for 174 minutes in the knockout stages, almost an hour per match. That’s the length of “The Godfather.” (Don’t worry, this newsletter is not 174 minutes long.)

• England finished the tournament fourth in XG/90, behind Spain, France and Sweden … two of which they beat on penalty kicks.

• So OK, maybe you’re thinking they were great on penalty kicks. BUT THEY WEREN’T! They only hit six of 12 penalty attempts between the two shootouts. And I can’t even give goalkeeper Hannah Hampton all the credit—while Hampton made some saves between the two shootouts, England’s opponents also missed the net entirely on four of their 11 attempts—two over the crossbar, and two wide.

• Long story short … USWNT is going to win the 2027 World Cup.

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The Darts Teen does it again

OK, I fear I have been too mean to England. To make it up to the lads and lasses, I am going to talk about The Darts: 18-year old Luke Littler won the World Matchplay championship in stunning fashion, coming back from huge deficits in the semifinals and the finals.

• Littler lost the first five legs of his semifinal against Josh Rock. But of course, the semifinals at the World Matchplay are best-of-33—you know, best-of-33, the classic sports format we all know and love. Trailing 6-1, Littler hit a 9-dart finish, something that has happened fewer than 100 times in the history of pro televised darts. The video is electric.

• The YouTube title for this video says “THE SECOND-GREATEST LEG OF ALL TIME?” which seems awfully specific. So I had to search “greatest darts leg of all time” and sure enough the channel posted that video two years ago. Even more electric.

  Respect to The Darts for maintaining discipline in YouTube titles, something I cannot attest to. (My NCAA March Madness picks were not, in fact, The Most Accurate.)

• In the final, Littler again lost the first five legs. But of course, the finals at the World Matchplay are best-of-35—you know, best-of-35, that other classic format we all know and love—and Littler rallied back to win 18-13.

• At 18 years old, Luke the Nuke has now won the Triple Crown of Darts—the World Championship, the World Matchplay, and the Premier League. And The Darts is a sport where middle-aged men can shine. His opponent in Sunday’s final, James Wade, is 42. The World Matchplay winner in 2021, Peter Wright, was 51 at the time.

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Quick hits:

• 2-time Olympic gold medal-winning fencer Lee Kiefer won her first-ever gold at the World Championships, rallying back from an 11-4 deficit in the quarterfinals, surviving, advancing, and totally dominating the semis and the gold medal match.

• Kerry dominated the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship to win their 39th title, the most of any county. That means this shirt I bought at the SuperValu in Dingle celebrating Kerry’s 37 All-Ireland championships is now two championships out of date.

(I would take a picture of me wearing the shirt, but, like I said, I’m moving tomorrow, and I have no clue where it is. Probably 3/4ths of the way down a box also containing towels and winter clothes.)

• Canada’s Summer McIntosh won the 400m freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in her first head-to-head battle against Katie Ledecky of the meet … but that was broadly expected. (McIntosh set a world record and won gold last year in Paris; Ledecky won bronze.) The real showdown is the 800m later this week.

• Tadej Pogačar coasted to his fourth Tour de France title, putting him just one away from tying the all-time record, because NOBODY HAS EVER WON MORE THAN FIVE. REMEMBER THAT GUY WHO WON MORE THAN FIVE? NO, YOU DON’T. Pogačar also won the Mountains Classification but didn’t get to wear the polka dot jersey because he was already wearing the yellow jersey.

• The green jersey for the Points Classification went to Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek, which I am mentioning because that’s the team our new editor Louis Bien works for during his day job. (Ed. Note: <3)

• Nick Kurtz went 6-for-6 with four home runs in one of the greatest individual games in baseball history.

  The #4 pick in the 2024 draft, Kurtz is just the 20th player in MLB history to hit four dingers in a game, and the first rookie.

• Former Alabama softball star Montana Fouts powered the Talons to the first AUSL title with a shutout win in Tuscaloosa. The Talons won the game 1-0 on a sixth-inning home run and this unreal solo double play in the seventh:

• Bubba Wallace won NASCAR’s Brickyard 400, which gets a big “hell yeah” from me.

• Team USA won the most medals at the World University Games—which, you know, makes sense, because we do the most college sports. (Japan and China did have more gold medals, though.)

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On Deck

• You can catch world championship swimming and diving every day this week. The diving gets started really early, while the swimming kicks off at 7 a.m. Eastern. That’s gonna be on Peacock.

• But make sure you lock in for the main event: Ledecky vs. McIntosh in the 800m free on Saturday morning.

• Also on this week: The Tour de France Femmes. Unlike the men’s race, which takes nearly a month, this one takes 10 days. They’ll get into the mountains this weekend. That’s also on Peacock!

• The USA Track and Field Championships will start Thursday in Eugene, Ore. I am not going to look it up but I feel like that should also be on Peacock.

• The NFL Hall of Fame Game is Thursday night, and as much as I love football I genuinely feel it should not exist in the month of July.