Sports briefs
U.S. Women’s Open moved to December
The U.S. Women’s Open in Houston is now scheduled for two weeks before Christmas. The LPGA Tour pushed back the resumption of its schedule until the middle of June and found slots for three tournaments that have been postponed.
Commissioner Mike Whan keeps looking at the calendar at a dwindling number of dates and trying to figure out how it will fall into place, missing one key piece of information brought on by the spread of the new coronavirus.
“Not knowing when our restart button gets pushed,” Whan said Friday.
That was delayed by a month with a chain of events that began with the U.S. Women’s Open announcing it would move from June 4-7 at Champions Golf Club to Dec. 10-13, the latest a major championship has ever been played. The 1929 PGA Championship ended on Dec. 7 in Los Angeles.
Preakness seeks new date
Officials say they’re working to find a new date for the Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
The Maryland Jockey Club and Stronach Group announced Friday that whenever the Preakness is run in 2020, it will go on without infield activities that had been one of the race’s biggest traditions. The Preakness was scheduled for May 16 in Baltimore.
The organizations say in a joint statement finding a new date for the Preakness “will take into consideration all of the recommended best practices from local and governmental health authorities to protect our community.” The Kentucky Derby was postponed from May 2 to Sept. 5. No decision has yet been made on the Belmont Stakes, which is scheduled for June 6 at Belmont Park in New York.
Title fight postponed
The world heavyweight title fight between Anthony Joshua and Kubrat Pulev on June 20 has been postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The fight was scheduled to take place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and will be Joshua’s first defense of his IBF, WBA, WBO belts since he regained them from Andy Ruiz Jr.
Joshua’s promoter, Matchroom Boxing, says a new date for the fight is being worked on.
Basketball Hall to announce 2020 class
A unique Hall of Fame class will be announced Saturday in a unique way.
Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are all expected to be officially announced as part of the 2020 class of enshrinees by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which typically reveals its annual selections at college basketball’s Final Four. This year, with sports shut down because of the global coronavirus pandemic, the announcement will be televised from ESPN’s studios with some elements of the show taped ahead of time.
Bryant, Duncan and Garnett, with a combined 11 championships and 48 All-Star seasons between them, are all first-time finalists and locks to be in this class. Only six players in NBA history have been selected to 15 or more All-Star Games – and Bryant, Duncan and Garnett are three of them.
The other first-time finalist for Hall consideration is 10-time WNBA All-Star and four-time Olympic gold medalist Tamika Catchings.
The other four finalists have all made it this far before, falling short of enshrinement previously: Baylor women’s coach Kim Mulkey, five-time Division II coach of the year and 1,000-game winner Barbara Stevens of Bentley University, two-time AP college coach of the year Eddie Sutton and Rudy Tomjanovich, who won two NBA titles as coach of the Houston Rockets.