BRADENTON, Fla. — The opener of the WNBA playoff series between the Seattle Storm and the Minnesota Lynx was postponed nearly 90 minutes before its scheduled tipoff Sunday because of inconclusive COVID-19 test results for Storm players.
The players with inconclusive results have undergone additional testing and are in isolation, according to the WNBA.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was at the hotel when she found out about the inconclusive results and boarded the Storm’s bus to let them know.
“We needed more testing and data,” Engelbert said in a TV interview. “As soon as I talked to them they were concerned about health and safety, and it wasn’t about basketball at that point.”
The league didn’t immediately announce when Game 1 of the best-of-five series would be played. Game 2 was scheduled for Tuesday night.
Pogacar wins Tour
PARIS — In a stunning performance for the ages, Tour de France rookie Tadej Pogacar won cycling’s showpiece race Sunday on the eve of his 22nd birthday, becoming the second-youngest winner of the 117-year-old event that this year braved — and overcame — France’s worsening coronavirus epidemic.
Turning him from promising prodigy into cycling superstar, Pogacar became the youngest winner since World War II and the first from Slovenia.
His victory was remarkable, too, for the way in which he sealed it: at the last possible moment, on the penultimate stage before Sunday’s finish on Paris’ Champs-Elysees. During the three-week cycling marathon over all five of France’s mountain ranges and 2,164 punishing miles, Pogacar held the race lead and the yellow jersey for just one stage — the last and most important one into Paris.
Pogacar KO’d the race and Slovenian countryman Primoz Roglic by snatching away the yellow jersey that he’d worn for 11 days, in a high-drama time trial Saturday.
Their 1-2 is the first for one country since British riders Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome also took the top spots at the 2012 Tour.
With jets trailing plumes of red, white and blue smoke above the riders as they raced on the Champs-Elysees, lined with French tricolor flags, the Tour was also celebrating a victory over the coronavirus.
When the race, delayed because of the pandemic from its usual spot in July, left the start town of Nice three weeks ago, it was unsure that riders would be able to stay virus-free to the finish.
But none of the 176 riders who started, or the 146 finishers, tested positive in multiple batteries of tests, validating the bubble measures put in place by Tour organizers to shield them from infection.
The Associated Press
