The 2026 FIFA World Cup begins this Thursday. The contest, which is bigger and longer than ever this year, is being held in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Many people are excited to see the 104 soccer matches with the world’s top players. But there are also some concerns about this year’s World Cup.
Posts tagged as “sports”
In early May, Rachel Entrekin won the Cocodona 250, an incredibly challenging 250-mile running race. She wasn't just the first woman across the finish line. She beat the first man by over an hour, and broke the race record by almost two hours.
On April 19, about 12,000 runners took part in a half marathon in Beijing, China. On a separate track, beside the human runners, over 300 humanoid (human-like) robots tackled the same challenge. In a similar race last year, humans won easily. This year, the robots not only won, they beat the human world record.
In the London Marathon on Sunday, Sabastian Sawe broke a long-standing barrier by finishing the race in less than two hours. Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa set a new record for women, finishing the race in 2:15:41. Despite setting world records, both runners only won by seconds.
The 2026 Winter Olympics opened last Friday in Milan, Italy. The Olympics, which are being held in several locations around Italy, will run through February 22. This year's Games even feature some new sports. Already, there have been thrilling results and there's more yet to come.
When Jude Owens was 2, he fell in love with playing snooker, a game similar to pool. He got so good at it that now, at age 3, he holds two world records for being the youngest person to complete certain snooker trick shots. And he's only getting started.
On January 25, rock climber Alex Honnold became the first person to climb Taiwan's Taipei 101 skyscraper without using any safety equipment. The 1,667-foot (508-meter) climb took the American about an hour and a half to complete. The event was shown live on the internet.
On October 11, over 1,600 athletes took off swimming in the 2025 Ironman World Championship Triathlon. After their long swim, they biked for over 100 miles. Then they ran a marathon. Sixty athletes never finished the race. But 80-year-old Natalie Grabow did, setting the record as the oldest woman ever to finish the race.
In Tokyo, Japan on Monday, Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis won his third straight World Athletics Championships gold medal. He then went on to set a new world record of 6.30 meters (20 feet, 8 inches). Duplantis is widely seen as the greatest pole vaulter of all time.
History-making tennis star Althea Gibson is being celebrated at the US Open this year. Monday would have been her 98th birthday. And 75 years ago today, Gibson became the first Black player to take part in the US National Championships. She led the way, making life easier for many future athletes of color.
The 2025 Major League Baseball season has only recently started. But already, it's got lots of people talking. But what they're talking about might come as a surprise - a strangely shaped bat, called a "torpedo bat". Some players believe the bat will help them hit more home runs.