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Pitching injuries continue to be an issue in MLB. How it's impacting pitchers at all levels

Published

6 months ago

July 20, 2025

Pitching injuries continue to be an issue in MLB. How it's impacting pitchers at all levels

Keith Meister is worried. The 63-year-old orthopedic surgeon feels as if he’s screaming into a void, his expert opinion falling on deaf ears.

Meister, whose slight Southern twang sweeps into conversation through his 20-plus-year career in the Lone Star State as the Texas Rangers’ team physician, is a leading voice in baseball’s pitching-injury epidemic. Meister wants the sport to err on the side of caution and create change to save pitchers’ arms. The trend, Meister says, stems from the industry-wide push to increase speed, spin and break at all costs.

While MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Assn. bicker about what’s causing the problem and how to solve it, the doctor provides his perspective. He just wants the 17-year-old high schooler, the 23-year-old college pitcher, and the 32-year-old MLB veteran to stop showing up at his office.

“It’s not going to change at the lower levels until it changes at the highest level,” Meister said in a phone interview. “I don’t see a motivation within Major League Baseball to change anything that would enhance the level of safety.”

MLB asked Meister to sit on a committee examining the growth in pitcher injuries about 18 months ago, he said. Meister says the committee never met. (MLB did not respond to a request for comment about the committee.)

Injury is among the biggest risks for youth pitchers looking for the all-too-sought-after faster fastball. Their quest to emulate their heroes, such as hard-throwing veteran starters and stars Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom, has caused them to need the same surgeries as the pros.

Trickling down, it’s the teenager, the budding pitching prospect desperate to land his Division I scholarship, who is hurt the most. MLB teams wave around multimillion-dollar signing bonuses for the MLB Draft. Those same pitchers hurt their elbows after pushing their abilities to the extreme, calling into action surgeons such as Meister.

“It’s an even bigger problem than it appears,” said David Vaught, a baseball historian, author and history professor at Texas A&M. “This goes back into high school or before that, this notion that you throw as hard as possible. … It’s so embedded, embedded in the baseball society.”

Tommy John surgery saves careers. But as pitchers across baseball push for higher velocity, more hurlers are going under the knife — for a first time, a second time and in some instances, a third or fourth procedure.

MLB pitching velocity steadily rose from 2008 to 2023, with average fastball velocity going from 91.9 mph to 94.2. According to Meister, the total number of elbow ligament surgeries in professional baseball in 2023 was greater than in the 1990s altogether. A 2015 study revealed 56.8% of Tommy John surgeries are for athletes in the 15- to 19-year-old age range.

“It’s like the soldiers on the front lines — they come into the tent with bullet wounds,” Meister said. “You take the bullets out, you patch them back up and you send them back out there to get shot up again.”

Orthopedic surgeon Keith Meister stands before former Rangers jerseys in his TMI Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Surgery office

MLB released a report on pitcher injuries in December 2024. The much-anticipated study concluded that increased pitching velocity, “optimizing stuff” — which MLB defines as movement characteristics of pitches (spin, vertical movement and horizontal movement) — and pitchers using maximum effort were the “most significant” causes of the increase in arm injuries.

Meister was interviewed for the report. He knew all that years ago. He was yelling from the proverbial rooftop as MLB took more than a year (the league commissioned the study in 2023) to conclude what the doctor considered basic knowledge.

“Nothing there that hadn’t been talked about before, and no suggestion for what needs to be changed,” Meister said to The Times Wednesday.

Although pitching development labs such as Driveline Baseball and Tread Athletics provide fresh ideas, Meister said he does not entirely blame them for the epidemic.

It’s basic economics. There’s a demand for throwing harder and the industry is filling the void.

However, Meister sees the dramatic increase in velocity for youth pitchers, such as a 10-mph boost in velocity within six months, as dangerous.

“That’s called child abuse,” Meister said. “The body can’t accommodate. It just can’t. It’s like taking a Corolla and dropping a Ferrari engine in it and saying, ‘Go ahead and drive that car, take it on the track, put the gas pedal to the metal and ask for that car to hold itself together.’ It’s impossible.”

On the other end of the arm-injury epidemic is the player lying on his back, humming along to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” as an air-cast-like device engulfs his arm, pressurizing the forearm and elbow.

The noise of the giant arm sleeve fills the room of Beimel Elite Athletics, a baseball training lab based in Torrance — owned by former MLB pitcher Joe Beimel. It generates Darth Vader-like noises, compressing up and down with a Krissshhhh Hhhwoooo… Krissshhhh Hhhwoooo.

Greg Dukeman, a Beimel Elite Athletics pitching coach whose 6-foot-8 frame towers over everyone in the facility, quipped that the elbow of the pitcher undergoing treatment was “barking.”

For professional and youth players alike, this technology, along with red-light therapy — a non-intrusive light treatment that increases cellular processes to heal tissue — and periodic ice baths, is just one example of how Beimel attempts to treat athletes as they tax their bodies, hoping to heal micro-tears in the arm without surgical intervention.

With little to no research publicly available on how high-velocity-and-movement training methods are hurting or — albeit highly unlikely — helping pitchers’ elbows and shoulders, Meister said, it’s often free rein with little — if any — guardrails.

Josh Mitchell, director of player development at Beimel’s Torrance lab, said that’s not exactly the case in their baseball performance program. Beimel will only work with youth athletes who are ready to take the next step, he said.

“You got the 9- and 10-year-olds, they’re not ready yet,” Mitchell said. “The 13- and 14-year-olds, before they graduate out of the youth and into our elite program, we’ll introduce the [velocity] training because they’re going to get it way more in that next phase.”

Beimel uses motion capture to provide pitching feedback, and uses health technology that coincides with its athletes having to self-report daily to track overexertion and determine how best to use their bodies.

Their goal is to provide as much support to their athletes as possible, using their facilities as a gym, baseball lab and pseudo health clinic.

Mariners pitcher Joe Beimel throws against the Colorado Rockies in the ninth inning of a game on Sept. 12, 2015.

Mitchell knows the pleasure and pain of modern-day pitching development. The Ridgway, Pa., native’s professional career was waning at the Single-A level before the Minnesota Twins acquired him in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 Draft.

The Twins, Mitchell said, embraced the cutting-edge technique of pitching velocity, seeing improvements across the board as he reached the Double-A level for the first time in his career in 2021. But Mitchell, whose bushy beard and joking personality complement a perpetually smiling visage, turned serious when explaining the end of his career.

“I’m gonna do what I know is gonna help me get bigger, stronger, faster,” said Mitchell, who jumped from throwing around 90 miles per hour to reaching as high as 98 mph on the radar gun. “And I did — to my arm’s expense, though.”

Mitchell underwent two Tommy John surgeries in less than a year and a half.

Mitchell became the wounded soldier that Meister so passionately recounted. Now, partially because of advanced training methods, youth athletes are more likely to visit that proverbial medic’s tent.

“There’s a saying around [young] baseball players that if you’re not throwing like, over 80 miles per hour and you’re not risking Tommy John, you’re not throwing hard enough,” said Daniel Acevedo, an orthopedic surgeon based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who mostly sees youth-level athletes.

In MLB’s report, an independent pitching development coach, who was unnamed, blamed “baseball society” for creating a velocity obsession. That velocity obsession has become a career route, an industry, a success story for baseball development companies across the country.

Driveline focuses on the never-ending “how” of baseball development. How can the pitcher throw harder, with more break, or spin? And it’s not just the pitchers. How can the hitter change his swing pattern to hit the ball farther and faster? Since then, baseball players from across levels have flocked to Driveline’s facilities and those like it to learn how to improve and level up.

“Maybe five or six years ago, if you throw 90-plus, you have a shot to play beyond college,” said Dylan Gargas, Arizona pitching coordinator for Driveline Baseball. “Now that barrier to entry just keeps getting higher and higher because guys throw harder.”

MLB players have even ditched their clubs midseason in hopes to unlock something to improve their pitching repertoire. Boston Red Sox right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler left the Dodgers last season to test himself at the Cressey Sports Performance training center near Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., before returning to eventually pitch the final out of the 2024 World Series.

Driveline is not alone.

Ben Brewster, co-founder of Tread Athletics, another baseball development company based in North Carolina, said high-school-aged players have been attracted to his performance facility because they see the results that MLB players and teammates achieve after continued training sessions.

Tread Athletics claims to have a role in more than 250 combined MLB draft picks or free agent signings, and says it has helped more than 1,000 high school players earn college opportunities.

Kansas City Royals left-hander Cole Ragans achieved a 4.4-mph increase from 2022 to 2023, the largest in MLB that year. With the velocity increase after his work at Tread Athletics, Ragans went from a league-average relief pitcher to a postseason ace in less than a year.

Kansas City Royals pitcher Cole Ragans throws during a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, May 16, in Kansas City, Mo.

So what makes Ragans’ development different from that of a teenage prospect reaching out to Tread Athletics?

“Ragans still could go from 92-94 miles per hour to 96 to 101,” Brewster said. “He still has room, but relatively speaking, he was a lot closer to his potential than, like, a random 15-year-old kid throwing 73 miles per hour.”

Meister knows Ragans well. When the southpaw was a member of the Rangers’ organization, the orthopedic surgeon performed Tommy John surgery on Ragans twice. (Ragans has also battled a rotator cuff strain this season and has been out since early June.)

“These velocities and these spin rates are very worrisome,” Meister said. “And we see that in, in and of itself, just in looking at how long these Tommy John procedures last.”

Throwing hard is not an overnight experience. Brewster shared a stern warning for the pitching development process, using weightlifting as an example. He said weightlifters can try to squat 500 pounds daily without days off, or attempt to squat 500 pounds with their knees caving in and buckling because of terrible form. There’s no 100% safe way to lift 500 pounds, just like there is no fail-safe way of throwing 100 mph. There’s always risk. It’s all in the form. Lifting is a science, and so is pitching — finding the safest way to train to increase velocity without injury.

“The responsible way to squat 500 pounds would be going up in weight over time, having great form and monitoring to make sure you’re not going too heavy, too soon,” Brewster said. “When it comes to pitching, you can manage workload. You can make sure that mechanically, they don’t have any glaring red flags.”

Brewster added that Tread, as of July, is actively creating its own data sets to explore how UCLs are affected by training methods, and how to use load management to skirt potential injuries.

MLB admitted to a “lack [of] comprehensive data to examine injury trends for amateur players” in its December report. It points to a lack of college data as well, where most Division I programs use such technology.

The Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center based in Birmingham, Ala. — founded by James Andrews, the former orthopedic surgeon to the stars — provided in-house data within MLB’s report, showing that the amount of UCL surgeries conducted for high school pitchers in their clinic has risen to as high as 60% of the total since 2015, while remaining above 40% overall through 2023.

Meister said baseball development companies may look great on the periphery — sending youth players to top colleges and the professional ranks — but it’s worth noting what they aren’t sharing publicly.

“What they don’t show you is that [youth athletes] are walking into our offices, three or six months or nine months later.”

Sports

Knights cruise past Cornell 86-69; Yungtum records career-best 17 rebound double-double

Published

2 hours ago

January 1, 2026

Your Sports Nation

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – Men’s basketball (10-2, 2-1 A-R-C) closed 2025 with an 86-69 road win over Cornell College (1-10, 0-2 MWC) behind a 29 point and 17 rebound double-double performance from Ethan Yungtum.

Game Summary

First Half
- Wartburg jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the opening minutes after five points from Ethan Yungtum and two from Gabe Trujillo
- Yungtum and Luke Ladwig each connected on three pointers along with a bucket from Austin Bienemann to take a 18-7 lead after six minutes of play
- Drake Wemark and Yungtum each scored four points over the next three minutes to keep the Knights in front 27-11
- After Cornell cut the lead to 10 points, Trujillo nailed a three pointer with 4:48 left in the half
- The Knights closed the half on an 8-3 run behind scores from Yungtum, Wemark and Kaleb Ferguson
  - Wartburg led 44-36 at halftime

Second Half
- Cornell outscored Wartburg 8-5 in the first three minutes of the second half after scores from Trujillo and Cael Schramm
- Wartburg brought the lead to 57-38 following three pointers from Yungtum and Ladwig and a score from Bienemann
- Lyle Olsen connected on another Wartburg three pointer as the Knights held a 64-45 lead with just over 10 minutes left to play
- The Knights continued to hold their lead over the next three minutes as both Trujillo and Bienemann scored four points each
- Bienemann had back-to-back dunks for Wartburg to push the Knights’ lead to 77-58 with 4:46 to go
- The Knights continued to match Cornell’s scoring in the final minutes as Yungtum, Bienemann and Ladwig combined for nine points to close out an 86-69 win for Wartburg

Top Performers

Notes/Streaks

Wartburg moves to 2-0 over Cornell this season
- First time with multiple wins over Cornell in one season since 2018-19

10^th double double of the season for Yungtum

Four blocks is a career high for Schramm
- 12 blocks over his last five games

10 assists ties Ladwig’s career best
- Fifth career game with 10 assists (second this season)

Career high in rebounds for Yungtum (17)
- Most by any Knight this season

Third time this season with 10+ threes made as a team

Seventh 20+ point scoring performance for Yungtum this season

Next Time Out
The Knights are back in action on Saturday, Jan. 3 for a home matchup against Nebraska Wesleyan University at 4 p.m.

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Meet the 2025 Huntsville Times All-Region volleyball team

Published

2 hours ago

January 1, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Huntsville area volleyball teams were well-represented in the AHSAA Elite Eight championship tournament with 11 teams earning spots this season.

Class 5A Guntersville won its sixth state championship while Class 6A Hazel Green advanced to the championship match before falling to Spanish Fort and Austin finished in the Class 7A final four.

Other teams winning to the final eight were Class 7A Bob Jones, which was the only team to push class champion McGill-Toolen to five sets since a Sept. 4 five-setter against Class 6A champion Spanish Fort. Class 6A Hartselle, Class 5A Arab, Brewer and Boaz, Class 4A Madison County and West Morgan and Class 3A Elkmont also earned Elite Eight spots.

The Huntsville Times All-Region team is compiled by the AL.com high school sports staff with input from coaches.

AL.com named Player of the Year, Attacker MVP, Defensive MVP, Setter MVP and Coach of the Year. Award winners are listed separately, but considered first-team selections.

HUNTSVILLE ALL-REGION VOLLEYBALL TEAM

(Players listed alphabetically)

Adily Alberti, Danville

5-8, Sr., Outside Hitter/Defensive Specialist

358 kills, 21 blocks, 332 digs, 24 assists, 36 aces

College: Undecided

Charlie Barnes, Austin

5-11, Sr., Outside Hitter

484 kills, 48 blocks, 408 digs, 42 assists, 76 aces

College: Bevill

McKenzie Doner, Elkmont

Jr., Outside Hitter/Middle

283 kills, 29 blocks, 374 digs, 23 assists, 72 aces

College: Undecided

Caroline Coulter, Decatur

5-10, Sr., Outside Hitter

441 kills, 21 blocks, 303 digs, 21 assists, 31 aces

College: Undecided

Aylah Duvall, Hazel Green

6-0, Jr., Middle

268 kills, 72 blocks, 191 digs, 22 assists, 27 aces

College: Undecided

Blakely Faulkner, Brewer

5-8, Sr., Outside Hitter

557 kills, 18 blocks, 653 digs, 82 assists, 84 aces

College: Undecided

Emani Green, James Clemens

5-4, Sr., Libero

402 digs, 277 assists, 44 aces

College: Alabama State

Riley Green, Lindsay Lane

5-4, Jr., Setter

1,020 assists, 54 kills, 299 digs, 52 aces

College: Undecided

Addy Gustafson, Madison County

5-8, Sr., Setter

1,194 assists, 61 kills, 35 blocks, 426 digs, 40 aces

College: Undecided

Layla Hanvy, Decatur Heritage

6-0, Jr., Middle

254 kills, 35 blocks, 210 digs, 32 assists, 33 aces

College: Undecided

Rylee Jo Harbin, New Hope

5-4, Jr., Libero, 44 kills, 0 blocks, 483 digs, 80 assists, 40 aces

College: Undecided

Layla Hendrix, Arab

6-0, Jr., Middle

435 kills, 35 blocks, 91 digs, 69 aces

College: Undecided

Maddy Johnson, Hartselle

5-7, Sr., Setter

Region second-best 1,518 assists, region-best 24.48 assists per match, 181 kills, 22 blocks, 421 digs, 68 aces

College: Undecided

Kalyn Jones, Lindsay Lane

5-10, Jr., Outside Hitter

Region second-best 654 kills, region-best 13.91 kills per match, 20 blocks, 333 digs, 27 assists, region second-best 102 aces

College: Undecided

Mya Lacey, Bob Jones

5-10, Sr., Right Side/Setter

396 kills, 479 assists, 59 blocks, 344 digs, 79 aces

College: AUM

Carleigh Lanford, Madison County

5-10, Sr., Outside Hitter/Defensive Specialist

574 kills, 34 blocks, 529 digs, 52 aces

College: Undecided

Abby Langlois, Priceville

6-1, Sr., Outside Hitter

435 kills, 96 blocks, 325 digs, 43 aces

College: West Florida

Italey May, Guntersville

5-8, So., Outside Hitter

451 kills, 29 blocks, 295 digs, 40 assists, 19 aces

College: Undecided

Brenna McReath, Hartselle

5-9, Jr., Right Side

523 kills, 62 blocks, 396 digs, 59 assists, region second-best 109 aces

College: Undecided

Kennedy Moss, Huntsville

5-8, Sr., Outside Hitter

376 kills, 38 blocks, 270 digs, 14 assists, 42 aces

College: Undecided

Bekah Mouser, Madison Academy

5-6, Jr., Outside Hitter

314 kills, 26 blocks, 392 digs, 30 aces

College: Undecided

McKenna Phillips, Buckhorn

5-8, Jr., Outside Hitter

359 kills, 65 blocks, 329 digs, 11 assists, 44 aces

College: Undecided

Brooke Reeves, Grissom

6-0, Sr., Outside Hitter

262 kills, 40 blocks, 205 digs, 29 aces

College: Calhoun

Elizabeth Rohling, St. John Paul II

5-10, Jr., Setter

188 kills, 22 blocks, 378 digs, 836 assists, 70 aces

College: Undecided

Shayna Russell, DAR

5-8, Sr., Outside Hitter

476 kills, 22 blocks, 453 digs, 52 assists, 69 aces

College: Snead

Olivia Saint, Hazel Green

6-3, Sr., Right Side

306 kills, 55 blocks, 103 digs, 18 assists, 18 aces

College: Freed Hardeman

Haniyah Standridge, West Morgan

5-7, So., Outside Hitter

Region-best 723 kills, region second-best 12.25 kills per match, 35 blocks, 335 digs, 53 aces

College: Undecided

Ka’miah Walker, Athens

5-8, Sr., Outside Hitter

425 kills, 6 blocks, 255 digs, 17 assists, 56 aces

College: Calhoun

Amari Woods, Austin

5-10, Jr., Outside Hitter

374 kills, 39 blocks, 329 digs, 57 assists, 45 aces

College: Undecided

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

AHSAA Volleyball 5A Championship — Guntersville’s Mary George Vandergriff sets the ball against Montgomery Catholic during the AHSAA Class 5A volleyball state championship at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com) Vasha Hunt

Mary George Vandergriff, Guntersville

5-8, Sr., Setter

Region-best 1,671 assists, region second-best 24.22 assists per match, 135 kills, 39 blocks, 426 digs, 86 aces

College: UAH

ATTACKER MVP

AHSAA Volleyball — Bob Jones’ Kendall Buckley celebrates point against McGill-Toolen during Class 7A play in the AHSAA state volleyball tournament at the CrossPlex in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)Vasha Hunt

Kendall Buckley, Bob Jones

6-0, Sr., Outside Hitter

476 kills, 57 blocks, 424 digs, 33 assists, 73 aces

College: UNA

DEFENSIVE MVP

AHSAA Volleyball 6A Championship — Hazel Green coach CoCo Tate Crutcher works with Camryn Collier during the AHSAA Class 6A volleyball state championship against Spanish Fort at Bill Harris Arena in Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com) Vasha Hunt

Camryn Collier, Hazel Green

5-7, Sr., Libero

568 digs, 132 assists, 23 aces

College: Calhoun

SETTER MVP

AHSAA Volleyball North Super Regional Tournament — Austin’s Maggie Jae Marsh sets the ball during Class 7A play in the AHSAA North Super Regional volleyball tournament at the Finley Center in Hoover, Ala., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (Vasha Hunt | preps@al.com)Vasha Hunt

Maggie Jae Marsh, Austin

5-8, Jr., Setter

1,174 assists, 195 kills, 56 blocks, 380 digs, 82 aces

College: Undecided

COACH OF THE YEAR

Melissa-Paul Gardner, Guntersville

HONORABLE MENTION

Outside Hitter/Right Side: Sydney Jarmon, Guntersville, Sr.; Emma Guffey, DAR, So.; Isabelle Sutton, Madison Academy, Sr.; Sydney Wallace, New Hope, Sr.; Mackenzie Martin, New Hope, Sr.; Makenzie Irmen, Brewer, Sr.; Emma- Glenn Roby, Decatur, Jr.; Lyndie Springer, Hartselle, Sr.; Abigail Preuitt, Hartselle, Sr.; Rhyan Holloway, St. John Paul II, Sr.; Aliyah Hollingsworth, Boaz, Jr.; Ella Watts, Bob Jones, So.; Julia Celani, James Clemens, So. ; Destiny Burns, Athens Bible, Sr.; Emma Underwood, Elkmont, Sr.; Caroline Cofield, Boaz, Jr.; Alice Morrison, Lindsay Lane, Jr.; Harper Jane Douglas, Decatur, Sr.

Middle: Izzy Fearnside, Madison County, Jr.; Lilly Roberts, Guntersville, Sr.; Shiloh Stanley, Guntersville, So.; Breanna Gentry, Boaz, Jr.; Raygen Muse, West Morgan, Jr.

Setter: Josie Childress, Priceville, Sr.; Madison Moore, Grissom, Jr.; Kylie Murrell, Athens Bible, Fr.; Lily Nelson, Hazel Green, So.; Brooklynn Gonzalez, Buckhorn, Jr.; Sarai McKenzie, Buckhorn, Jr.; Millie Lackey, Arab, Jr.; Rose Garner, Decatur Heritage, Jr.; Gillian Head, DAR, Jr. ; Sarah Bacon, Madison Academy, So.

Defensive Specialist/Libero: Isabella Grant, St. John Paul II, Jr.; Alley Emerson, Brewer, So.; Kayden Gronczniak, Arab, Sr.; Aubree Lagunas, Athens, Jr.; Paige Bradshaw, Madison County, Fr.

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H.S. INDOOR TRACK & FIELD: GLOW region athletes shine in RWTL meet at Nazareth University | Sports

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6 hours ago

January 1, 2026

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LANE ONE: Projecting the top stories of 2026 (10 to 6), with questions about Russia, Israel, esports, doping, college chaos and, of course, track & field

Published

7 hours ago

January 1, 2026

Your Sports Nation

★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★

★ To get the daily Sports Examiner Recap by e-mail: sign up here! ★

≡ TOP STORIES of 2026: 10 to 6 ≡

The post-Olympic year of 2025 is done and a Winter Olympic year is getting started in 2026. What will the top stories be in the new year? Time for predictions, or – let’s say – projections of the issues that will garner attention and interest. Some good and some not good at all.

10. Russia, Israel and access to sport
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and is still fighting its war of aggression. Hamas, the ruling body in Gaza, massacred more than 1,200 Israelis in a coordinated attack on 7 October 2023 and took 250 hostages and Israel responded with a comprehensive attack, leading to a fragile “cease fire,” in effect since 10 October 2025.

In 2022, the International Olympic Committee declared quickly that Russian and Belarusian athletes should not participate in international competitions, including teams. An IOC plan to allow “neutral” individuals who have shown no public support for the war was developed at the end of 2023 and implemented for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In December, the IOC decided that Russian and Belarusian “youth” competitors and teams can compete internationally without restrictions, subject to federation rules and procedures.

In October 2025, Indonesia – after giving assurances earlier – refused to allow Israeli athletes to enter the country to compete in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The IOC ended all discussions about future events in Indonesia and the government has still not said it will allow Israeli participation in the future.

At the Olympic Summit on 11 December 2025, the Olympic stakeholders “reaffirmed that athletes have a fundamental right to access sport across the world, and to compete free from political interference or pressure from governmental organisations.”

So what happens in 2026? Russia and Belarus appear to be in a re-entry phase, but what about Israel and other IOC-recognized countries that have been refused visas, such as Kosovo? And what of the increasing scrutiny on entry into the United States, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup in June and July?

9. The IOC and esports?
A 12-year deal between the IOC and the Saudi Arabian National Olympic Committee to create and stage a new, “Olympic Esports Games” was announced with great fanfare in July 2024.

In October 2025, the deal was dead, with the announcement noting in part:

“The IOC, for its part, will develop a new approach to the Olympic Esports Games, taking the feedback from the ‘Pause and Reflect’ process into account, and pursue a new partnership model.

“This approach will be a chance to better fit the Olympic Esports Games to the long-term ambitions of the Olympic Movement and to spread the opportunities presented by the Olympic Esports Games more widely, with the objective of having the inaugural Games as soon as possible.”

What does the IOC do now? Under prior President Thomas Bach (GER), a link to the e-sports community was created, but has stalled. As he noted at the time, the structure of competitive gaming is much different from Olympic sports, with commercial publishers instead of International Federations.

There are perhaps more than three billion active gamers worldwide, but many fewer registered professionals. Will new President Kirsty Coventry’s IOC seek out engagement, as Bach did? Find a blend with active sport contested online, a la the World Rowing Indoor Championships? Do nothing?

Remember this line in “The Godfather” from 1972? Looking to the future, consigliere Tom Hagen told his boss, Vito Corleone, “if we don’t get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have; I mean not now, but ten years from now.”

8. Collegiate sport still in chaos
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee stated that “75% of U.S. Olympians will have competed collegiately as part of their journey to Team USA” for the Paris 2024 Games and that the American collegiate system is a bedrock of the U.S. athlete development program.

In 2025, collegiate athletics surged into chaos as pay-for-play was fully implemented, firstly and mostly for college football and also significantly impacting college basketball for men and women. The now-legal payments to players, and barely-regulated booster pay on top of that, plus the costs for coaches, support and facilities, threatens to crowd out all other sports, including Olympic mainstays such as track & field, swimming, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics and many others.

The NCAA is looking to Congress for legislative support and some collegiate conferences and the USOPC are beyond the SCORE Act, which requires that the large football-playing schools maintain a 16-sport program which will ensure continued funding of non-revenue sports, which are essentially everything other than football and basketball at most schools.

But the SCORE Act (H.R. 4312) and competing bills have not made it across the finish line yet and do not appear to be close. The Trump Administration is in favor of a Congressional fix to the college sport mess, but has many other priorities.

There is a wide agreement that collegiate sport’s structure is broken, but how to fix it is not clear. We’re here to help: The Sports Examiner proposed a comprehensive fix in 2024, detailed here.

7. What about the Enhanced Games?
Under the leadership of then-IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP), the World Anti-Doping Agency was formed in 1999 to take the global lead against doping in sport, on competitive, ethical and medical safety grounds.

In 2025, a new competition was announced, doing away with doping tests and encouraging “enhanced” athletes to compete in a showcase of “superhumans,” titled the Enhanced Games, planned to be held at Resorts World in Las Vegas, Nevada in late May of 2026.

Widely condemned, the event is to feature a small number of sprint events in track & field and swimming, plus weightlifting, all trying to break world records set by athletes who have competed in competitions which follow the World Anti-Doping Code.

Each event is to have a $500,000 prize purse, with $250,000 for the winner; world-record bonuses will pay $250,000 except for the 50 m Free swim and 100 m dash, which will have $1 million payouts for records.

WADA and many other organizations have labeled the event dangerous and unethical. The promoters have had trouble signing up athletes, who will be instantly banned from Olympic and International Federation competitions. So far, nine swimmers, three track athletes and two weightlifters have agreed to participate, and the Enhanced Games had a lawsuit alleging restraint of trade against WADA, World Aquatics and USA Swimming was dismissed.

But the Enhanced Games got a $40 million lifeline in a complex transaction in November, with the promise of more, with a product line to follow which would be the basis of the business going forward.

Will the Enhanced Games be held? If so, will anyone care? Many in the Olympic world have disowned it, but there will be attention paid to see what happens – if anything – in May.

6. Will ATHLOS succeed where Grand Slam Track failed?
One of the big questions of 2025 was whether Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track would succeed. It did not, staging only three of its planned four meets, selling less than 65,000 tickets across eight meet days and staring at $31.4 million in debt at the end of 2025.

Now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, Grand Slam Track is trying to settle its debts – it owes its athletes about $7 million – and get re-energized with new funding. It will have an uphill climb to regain any trust within the track & field community. But it is trying.

Getting ready to enter the fray, apparently, is ATHLOS, a project of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who staged two showy, end-of-season meets in New York in 2024 and 2025, with a limited event program, strong athlete pay and integrated concerts which had more fan attention than the meets.

Ohanian has promised an ATHLOS “league” beginning in 2026:

“The ATHLOS League introduces a team-based competition model designed for and by the modern athlete. Taking place after the conclusion of the World Athletics season, ATHLOS will feature multiple meets hosted in major cities, culminating in a final championship event.”

The ownership is to include athletes such as Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall. That’s all there is to say at present. The details, with Grand Slam Track’s experience as a cautionary tale, will be fascinating.

Coming New Year’s Day: our projected top-five stories of 2026, including a fight over science and two of the world mega-events.

Rich Perelman
Editor

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Sports

Texas A&M Volleyball makes USA Today’s Top Women’s Moments list

Published

10 hours ago

January 1, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Dec. 31, 2025, 8:16 p.m. CT

When it comes to recent college athletics, few stories can match the rise of the Texas A&M volleyball program—a team that went from unranked three years ago to national champions. Their remarkable climb just earned major national recognition, as one of the country’s biggest publications placed their title run among the top women’s sports moments of the year.

On Monday, USA Today released its 2025 Top Ten Women’s Sports Moments, highlighting the most unforgettable achievements across the country. Women’s athletics delivered countless headline‑worthy performances this year, but when it came to upsets, nothing topped Texas A&M’s five‑set stunner over No. 1 Nebraska in the NCAA Tournament.

The Aggies toppled the undefeated favorite on its home floor, in front of a sea of red, to punch their ticket to the Final Four—then dominated the rest of the field on their way to the program’s first‑ever national championship.

Under head coach Jamie Morrison, A&M’s fast‑paced, aggressive style overwhelmed opponents all season. Just as important, Morrison instilled a belief in his team that they belonged on the sport’s biggest stage—and that they were capable of winning it all. The Aggies played like it, too.

Their takedown of the sport’s juggernaut didn’t just shift the tournament. It put the entire volleyball world on notice. And now, that moment has been cemented nationally, earning the No. 10 spot on USA Today’s list of the top women’s sports moments of the year.

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2025 Volleyball Year in Review – UCF Athletics

Published

10 hours ago

January 1, 2026

Your Sports Nation

A PERIOD OF FIRSTS AND MILESTONES

Botsford had to wait just over 100 minutes to secure his first win as head coach at UCF, as the Knights disposed of Chattanooga in four sets in the 2025 season opener. The contest commenced the Black and Gold Classic and an 11-match non-conference slate. It was also the first glance at the swarm of depth present at The Venue, with five Knights registering five or more kills.

Sweeps over Norfolk State and UC Riverside preceded the first road trip of the slate at the 305 Challenge in Miami. UCF demolished Statson in the first contest, outscoring the Hatters by 40 points across just 66 minutes of action. A Saturday night tilt with eventual NCAA second-round participants, Miami, saw the Knights beaten by a combined six points, a learning opportunity for the squad and a glimpse of the level of competition expected in the Big 12.

The weekend capper against hosts FIU featured 13 aces from UCF and the first breakout from English, who boasted eight and the most by a Knight since 2021. From then, the FGCU transfer never left the NCAA national rankings while widening her gap as the active leader in division one.

Returning home for three matchups before opening Big 12 action with Baylor, the Black and Gold produced their most complete performance of the season to open the Knights Invite, sweeping a red-hot Arkansas State team behind a formidable defensive display. The ‘Nauts then took care of business against Florida Atlantic in their first space match of the year in four sets. However, the highs of the past 48 hours were erased after a difficult defeat to Brown, a disappointing result with conference play just two days away.

The Big 12’s most historic program, Baylor, handed the Knights a three-set loss, with a contested third-set still supplying indications of future ranked contests. Before the rest of league play resumed, UCF ventured to the Crimson Classic in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, striving to bounce back into the win column.

English was at the forefront of a well-rounded display against Memphis, tallying a career-high nine aces, tied for the second most by an athlete in a four-set NCAA match this season, to set the tone. A day later, the Knights disposed of the hosts in another four-set clinic, with first-year’s Haley and Porter playing substantial time in the contest. With Botsford’s first non-conference slate with the Knights completed, a 9-2 clip underlined the first sign of growth compared to a 7-3 record a year prior.

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