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If there was any question that the U.S. has the best women’s gymnastics team in the world, it was answered today for the fifth time. With two consecutive Olympic golds and world championships titles in 2011, 2014 and 2015, the U.S. women have made a seemingly unbreakable habit of winning. And not just edging out their competitors by a few tenths, but leading the competition from start to finish and claiming victory by…

The credibility of Olympic swimming, already suffering from spats and doping scandals, has been further damaged by serious discrepancies in the entry times of a number of competitors. The Olympic entry lists show many of the swimmers competing in Rio achieved their entry times at the World Aquatics Championships in Kazan in August 2015. In nine cases the entry times listed do not match the times recorded at those championships….

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Nothing represents the peak of physical condition like Olympic athletes do, yet they also represent a wide range of body types, shapes and sizes. Basketball players are generally tall and long-limbed, whereas gymnasts tend to be small and compact. Wrestlers’ upper bodies are heavily padded with muscle, while fencers carry more muscle in their lower bodies. Swimmers and divers tend to have a slightly higher percentage of…

RIO DE JANEIRO — Years from now, it will be difficult to imagine that there were questions about what Michael Phelps might do here at age 31, in his fifth Olympics. The fact that he was out of his sport, then nearly out of his head, could seem utterly forgettable. What will remain are the nights like Tuesday, when he touched the wall first, gestured to the crowd that he…

If there was any question that the U.S. has the best women’s gymnastics team in the world, it was answered today for the fifth time. With two consecutive Olympic golds and world championships titles in 2011, 2014 and 2015, the U.S. women have made a seemingly unbreakable habit of winning. And not just edging out their competitors by a few tenths, but leading the competition from start to finish and claiming victory by…

If there was any question that the U.S. has the best women’s gymnastics team in the world, it was answered today for the fifth time. With two consecutive Olympic golds and world championships titles in 2011, 2014 and 2015, the U.S. women have made a seemingly unbreakable habit of winning. And not just edging out their competitors by a few tenths, but leading the competition from start to finish and claiming victory by…

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Serena Williams follows through on a backhand return against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.(Photo: Christopher Hanewinckel, USA TODAY Sports) RIO DE JANEIRO — The inexplicable can happen in tennis, but Serena Williams’ performance at the 2016 Olympics will truly go down as one of the biggest head-scratchers of her career. Spraying errors and piling up double-faults at an uncharacteristic rate, Williams made a stunningly lethargic exit from Rio on Tuesday, losing 6-4, 6-3…

Former Heisman Trophy winner and either subpar or blackballed NFL quarterback — depending upon who you ask — Tim Tebow would like to make a career of being a Major League Baseball player. (Pause for laughter.) As is bound to be the case when anything happens regarding the Tebow lightning rod, there was some completely and utterly dumb stuff being said on the internet on Tuesday. Let’s run through the…

One year after its shares began a 12% slide driven by concerns over ESPN’s growth trajectory, Walt Disney Co. has come up with an answer for Wall Street: The media giant said Tuesday it will spend $1 billion to acquire a 33% stake in BAMTech, the streaming media unit created by Major League Baseball. As part of the deal, ESPN will later this year launch a new digital service, separate…

Rangers DH Prince Fielder recently underwent major neck surgery for the second time in his career. At the very least, Fielder will miss the remainder of the 2016 season, but now comes this from Fox’s Ken Rosenthal: Sources have confirmed to multiple Rangers writers that Fielder is indeed done. The Rangers will reportedly be able to get some financial relief from insurance, according to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning…

We’re on the ground in Rio covering the 2016 Summer Olympics. Check out all our coverage here. Does Brazil have a home-field advantage in Rio? More Sports Again and again, research has shown that home-field advantage is a constant in sports across the world. Basketball referees call more fouls on the visitors. Pitchers for the home team in baseball get a wider strike zone. Home teams in soccer receive fewer…

To save articles or get newsletters, alerts or recommendations – all free. Don’t have an account yet?Create an account » Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?Learn more » Need to connect your Home Delivery subscription to NYTimes.com?Link your subscription »

To save articles or get newsletters, alerts or recommendations – all free. Don’t have an account yet?Create an account » Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?Learn more » Need to connect your Home Delivery subscription to NYTimes.com?Link your subscription »

Rangers DH Prince Fielder recently underwent major neck surgery for the second time in his career. At the very least, Fielder will miss the remainder of the 2016 season, but now comes this from Fox’s Ken Rosenthal: Sources have confirmed to multiple Rangers writers that Fielder is indeed done. The Rangers will reportedly be able to get some financial relief from insurance, according to Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning…

The most heated fight at the Rio Olympics lasted just a minute and four seconds. It was a battle between good and evil, the fair and unfair, the clean and the cheaters, with a hint of a Cold War twist. The conflict: a 100-meter breaststroke battle between two swimmers, American Lilly King and Russian Yulia Efimova. In Sunday’s qualifying race, King and Efimova came in first and second place,…

USA TODAY Sports’ Martin Rogers discusses what you should be watching at the Olympics on Tuesday. USA TODAY Sports

Tebow throws during a workout in July 2015.(Photo: Gary A. Vasquez, USA TODAY Sports) Tim Tebow is serious about his professional sports rebirth as a baseball player and his representatives said the former NFL quarterback’s workout for major league scouts won’t be a sideshow. Tebow has trained for the last several months in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Los Angeles at a sport he hasn’t played regularly for more than a decade. Tebow has…

An upcoming Fox drama about the first woman to play Major League Baseball is not merely about baseball, said its co-creator and co-executive producer, Dan Fogelman. “It’s a show that takes place in the world of baseball,” he said, “It’s about this young woman coming of age with the lens of the world watching her.” Fogelman doesn’t believe the series is based in folklore either, but more a…