Basketball
NEW YORK – Ice Cube and Allen Iverson are putting their star power behind a new 3-on-3 professional basketball league.
Teams comprised of former NBA stars will play its eight-game season in the summer starting June 24 with each week’s contests taking place in a different city with all eight teams playing each Saturday. It will finish with a two-week playoffs.
Chauncey Billups, Rashard Lewis and Kenyon Martin are some of the former NBA players who are committed to play in the league. Gary Payton and George Gervin will serve as two of the coaches.
The games will be half-court and played to 60 points. Other highlights include a 4-point shot and a halftime show in between games two and three.
Cycling
SALT LAKE CITY – Organizers of the Tour of Utah say this summer’s professional cycling race will run in seven stages in the northern part of the state, beginning July 31 in Logan and ending Aug. 8 in Salt Lake City.
The routes announced Wednesday include four first-time host cities – Brigham City, Big Cottonwood Canyon, South Jordan and Layton.
Tour of Utah executive director Jenn Andres says cyclists will face challenging climbs in the Wasatch Range around Snowbasin Resort and a sprint finish in Bountiful.
Golf
Jim Furyk was appointed Wednesday as the U.S. captain for the 2018 Ryder Cup in France, where his team will try to win on European soil for the first time in 25 years.
Furyk was a unanimous choice by the Ryder Cup committee last month.
The former U.S. Open champion, and the only player in history to twice post rounds in the 50s, brings more playing experience than any other U.S. captain. Furyk played on nine consecutive teams starting in 1997, and he was an assistant captain to Davis Love III last year at Hazeltine.
MLB
CHICAGO – President Barack Obama will welcome the World Series champion Chicago Cubs at the White House on Monday, just five days before he leaves office.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that Obama is “really looking forward to it,” as were a number of West Wing colleagues who are Cubs fans.
The president invited the Cubs shortly after they beat the Cleveland Indians in an extra-inning, Game 7 thriller to end a title drought that dated to 1908. Obama has a home in Chicago and is a fan of the White Sox, but he rooted for the North Siders since his favorite team didn’t make the playoffs.
Earnest said he was not aware of any unexpected challenges scheduling the visit so soon after the Cubs won the Series. He noted the visit comes earlier than normal. The visit will come five days before Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
Skiing
Lindsey Vonn struggled with nerve damage so severe she couldn’t even move her fingers soon after surgery to fix her broken right arm.
On her Facebook page, the four-time overall World Cup champion revealed in a more than 5-minute video her journey back to the slopes after breaking her right arm during a fall while training in November.
Vonn plans to compete in the downhill this weekend in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria. It will be her first World Cup race since fracturing her left knee in a super-G crash in Andorra last February.
Associated Press
