Olympics

Rat poison, an open marathon course and flagrant cheating during the race just the tip of the weird 1904 Olympic iceberg in St. Louis.

For decades, the U.S. dominated the men's 400-meter race, one of the most difficult and prestigious events at any Olympic Games. But no American man had won gold since 2008 — until Wednesday, when Raytown South alum Quincy Hall took the top spot.

Raytown South alum Quincy Hall breezed past competitors in the men's 400-meter semifinals today. Tomorrow, he goes for gold in the finals. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan joined Up To Date from Paris to share the latest on the Summer Games.

As a young child, Brandon Miller dreamed of standing on the podium at the Olympics. The O’Fallon, Missouri, native now has a chance to make his mark in Paris.

Half of Team USA’s shotgun trap shooters are from the Kansas City area. So what is it about Missouri and Kansas that makes for such good Olympic shooters? Plus: A Missouri professor is the first woman to join the American wheelchair rugby team at the Paralympic Games.

Half of this year's Team USA shotgun trapshooters hail from within an hour of Kansas City. Army Staff Sgt. Rachel Tozier grew up competing in rural Pattonsburg, Missouri, to the north. Derrick Main was raised on a family farm in Walnut, Kansas, to the south.

During the school year, Sarah Adam is an assistant professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University. But this summer, she’s turning her studies toward the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

Stanley Redwine previously served on the international stage as the USA men’s coach at the 2022 IAAF World Outdoor Championships, and a USA assistant coach for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The 20-year-old Grain Valley native, who trained in Blue Springs, said on social media last week that a toxic coaching environment at the University of Utah negatively affected her mental health. “The abuse often happened in individual coach-athlete meetings," she wrote.

Aleah Finnegan, Leanne Wong, and Lynnzee Brown all trained at Great American Gymnastics Express, known as GAGE, in Blue Springs. One of them has already qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

The Native American athlete from Oklahoma made his athletic mark in collegiate, Olympic and professional sports.

The Kansas City coach under the biggest spotlight right now is not Andy Reid of the Chiefs, or Mike Matheny of the Royals. It’s the coach of the U.S. women’s national soccer team.