Wednesday, October 21, 2026

The men's and women's marathons at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will each have 70 starters, down from 80, under the qualification system World Athletics has released, Canadian Running reports. The qualifying window opens November 1 and closes April 30, 2028.

World Athletics says it will set entry standards so that about 40 percent of the field qualifies by time and 60 percent through its world rankings. Meeting the standard does not guarantee a place: if more athletes hit it than there are spots, the fastest qualify. National Olympic Committees get more flexibility to reallocate quota places, including to athletes who did not meet the standard.

The qualifying times themselves will not be published until December. For comparison, the standards World Athletics set for the 2027 World Championships are 2:06:00 for men and 2:23:20 for women, and in 2026 alone 89 men ran under 2:06 and 82 women under 2:23, according to the magazine.

World Aquatics will hold the 2027 Swimming World Cup in three Olympic host cities: Berlin on October 15–17, Paris on October 22–24 and London on October 29–31, Swimming World reports. It brings the series back to Europe for the first time since 2023.

The meets matter more than usual. Los Angeles 2028 adds 50-meter backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly to the Olympic program, and the World Cup is a direct qualification route for those six new events, with a cap of six unique qualifiers per event, according to World Aquatics. Each stop decides some of them: the men's 50 back and women's 50 fly in Berlin, and the men's 50 breaststroke and women's 50 backstroke in London.

London's leg, at the London Aquatics Centre in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, will be the first major global swimming meet in Britain since the 2012 Games. Broader Olympic swimming qualification opens March 1, 2027.

The Hang Seng Bank Hong Kong Slam at Kai Tak Arena, October 19 to 25, is the first PPA Tour Asia 1500 event and the season finale of the tour's Asian circuit, with up to $1.1 million in prize money and payouts and 1,500 ranking points for champions, the richest professional pickleball event held in Asia, The Dink reports. Early rounds are done in several draws, with championship play this weekend; the tournament's schedule and streams are on the PPA Tour Asia site.

The NBA's 81st regular season began Tuesday, October 20, with a tripleheader on NBC and Peacock: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York and Oklahoma City at San Antonio, a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals.

The middle game was the night's centerpiece. The Knicks, the defending champions after beating the Spurs in the NBA Finals, raised a banner for their first title since 1973, and LeBron James played his first game for the 76ers, the fourth franchise of his career, the Associated Press reported. James returns to Los Angeles to face the Lakers on Christmas Day.

National coverage spreads out this week: ESPN opens its schedule with doubleheaders on Wednesday and Thursday, and Prime Video's Friday doubleheaders start October 23. Each team plays 82 games; the regular season ends Sunday, April 11, 2027, and All-Star weekend is February 19 to 21 in Phoenix, according to FOX Sports' calendar of league dates.

All NFL trading for 2026 ends at 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 10, the league's calendar of important dates says. That is the Tuesday after Week 9, under the 2024 rule change that pushed the deadline back a week.

This year's market opened unusually early. The Cardinals traded receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Texans, the Vikings dealt quarterback J.J. McCarthy to the Giants, and the Steelers sent cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to the Cowboys before October, Sports Illustrated's trade tracker shows.

Week 7 starts Thursday night with the Patriots and Bears. Two days before the deadline, on November 8, the league plays a regular-season game at the Bernabéu in Madrid, with the Cincinnati Bengals as one of the teams.

The Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic, the league's outdoor game, is Sunday, October 25, in Winnipeg, with the Jets hosting the Montreal Canadiens. Canadiens and Jets alumni play the day before, on Saturday, October 24, according to the league and the Jets' owner, True North Sports and Entertainment.

It is the Heritage Classic's return to Winnipeg. Tickets went on sale in March; check the NHL's event page for broadcast details and any weather-related schedule changes, which outdoor games are subject to.

Major League Soccer's regular season ends Saturday, November 7, with Decision Day, when all 30 clubs play: Eastern Conference teams at 4 p.m. Eastern and Western Conference teams at 7 p.m., the league says. The top nine in each conference make the playoffs.

Seeds 1 through 7 go straight to the best-of-3 first round. Seeds 8 and 9 meet in single-elimination Wild Card matches on Wednesday, November 18, with no extra time if the game is tied after regulation. MLS Cup is Friday, December 18, hosted by the finalist with the better regular-season record.

Six clubs had clinched as of the league's latest tracker: Inter Miami, Nashville and New England in the East, and FC Dallas, St. Louis City and Vancouver in the West. Every match streams on Apple TV, with select games, including MLS Cup, also on FOX in the United States and TSN and RDS in Canada.

Garmin announced three GPS cycling computers on October 20, all on sale now.

The Edge 1060, at a suggested $799.99, is the premium model and the first in the line built around voice. With a built-in microphone and speaker, riders say "Okay, Garmin" to read out stats such as heart rate, pick a route, find a point of interest like the nearest coffee shop, or report a pothole, without taking their hands off the bars. It also plays voice messages through the Garmin Messenger app on a connected phone, rings a digital bike bell, adds buttons for riding in gloves or bad weather, and can charge a light or phone from its own battery. Garmin rates it at up to 20 hours in the most demanding use and up to 60 hours in battery saver mode.

The Edge Explore 3, $399.99, and Explore 3 Plus, $499.99, are the easier-to-use models: touchscreen maps, routing, points of interest, incident detection, LiveTrack location sharing, weather alerts and support for Garmin's Varia radar and lights, plus Garmin Cycling coach workout plans. Only the Plus has the speaker and microphone for voice messages. Battery life is up to 16 hours on the Explore 3 and 14 on the Plus, or 48 hours in saver mode on both.

Prices and battery figures are Garmin's; independent battery tests from reviewers usually follow within weeks of a launch.

Cannondale is closing its Connecticut headquarters, where the bike brand has been based since its founding in 1971, and moving its U.S. sales and operations to Santa Cruz, California, the company told employees and dealers on October 21, Velo reports.

The move puts Cannondale alongside Santa Cruz and Cervélo, two other brands owned by its Dutch parent, Pon.Bike, which bought Cannondale in 2022 when it acquired Dorel Sports, also the owner of Schwinn. Outside sales reps will now serve as a single contact for all three brands. The company said each will keep its own identity, models and relationship with riders. Cannondale's global headquarters moves to Woudenberg in the Netherlands, its existing European base, and research and engineering stay in Freiburg, Germany.

A letter filed with the Connecticut Department of Labor lists 143 workers who may be affected, according to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, as cited by Velo. The closure will happen over the next six months and be final in mid-2027, with some employees staying through 2027.

The company's statement does not mention any change to bikes or dealers for riders; for questions about a specific bike, the shop that sold it is still the first stop.

The WTA Finals, the women's tour's season-ending championship for its top eight singles players and doubles teams, will be played November 8 to 15 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in California, after moving from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Australian Associated Press reported when the tour announced the change in July.

"Following two impactful years of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, the WTA requested to move the 2026 WTA Finals to a new host location," the tour said, and the Saudi Tennis Federation agreed to end the hosting arrangement. WTA chair Valerie Camillo called Indian Wells, home of the BNP Paribas Open each March, an exceptional stage.

Players qualify through the season-long Race to the Finals and must have played at least eight WTA 1000 or 500 events. Elena Rybakina won last year's title, beating Aryna Sabalenka in the final. The field fills over the next two weeks; the WTA's site lists who has qualified.

The PGA Tour's fall series resumes Thursday, October 22, with the Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, through Sunday. The tournaments after the Tour Championship are where players fight to keep or improve their status for next season, and each awards 500 FedExCup points to the winner.

Four events follow: the VidantaWorld Mexico Open at Vidanta Vallarta, October 29 to November 1, moved from its usual February date; the World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, November 5 to 8; the inaugural Good Good Championship at Omni Barton Creek in Austin, November 12 to 15; and the RSM Classic at Sea Island, Georgia, November 19 to 22, where the fall standings and 2027 playing privileges are settled.

The tour dropped the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi, played every year since 1968, and the Procore Championship in Napa this year, adding Asheville and Austin, ESPN reported when the schedule was announced.

World Athletics has published the 2027 Wanda Diamond League calendar, the 18th season of the sport's top one-day meeting series. It opens in Doha on May 7 and ends with a two-day final in Zurich on August 25 and 26, where the winner of each discipline is crowned Diamond League champion.

The road to the final: Doha, May 7; Shanghai/Keqiao, May 15; Xiamen, May 22; Rome, May 27; Rabat, May 30, the series' only African stop; Oslo, June 3; Stockholm, June 6; Paris, June 25; Eugene, July 3, the only meeting in the United States; Monaco, July 9; Lausanne, July 13; London, July 17; Silesia, August 15; and Brussels, August 20. Athletes earn points at each meeting toward a place in the final.

The season doubles as the build-up to the World Athletics Championships in Beijing in September 2027, World Athletics said.

LIV Golf players have until Sunday, October 25, to opt in or out of what the league calls LIV 2.0, Golf Monthly reports, and after that the league's future lineup should become much clearer. Louis Oosthuizen is among those who have confirmed they are leaving, and Golf Magic reports that another major champion has also decided to quit.

On the other side of the split, the Korn Ferry Tour will award 40 PGA Tour cards at the end of the 2027 season, double the current number: 10 through the new PGA Tour Championship Series and 30 through the Challenger Series.

Also this week: all seven TGL teams have set their rosters for season three, adding Ryan Fox, Keith Mitchell and Jackson Koivun alongside Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, while Xander Schauffele and Adam Scott are among those no longer on a roster; the winner of the Asian Tour's Hong Kong Open earns invitations to the 2027 Masters and Open Championship; and only the DP World Tour's top 50 qualify for next month's DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

Specialized and the Belgian team Quick-Step confirmed on Monday, October 19, the first day of road racing's off-season, that their partnership is over, Velo reports. The collaboration, which began in 2007, paused in 2010 and 2011 and ran continuously from 2012, brought the team known as the Wolf Pack more than 800 victories.

Quick-Step riders won cobbled Monuments, Tour de France stages and world titles on the Tarmac, Shiv, Roubaix and Venge, and riders including Tom Boonen, Mark Cavendish and Remco Evenepoel helped develop bikes Specialized went on to sell to the public, Cavendish on sprint bikes and Evenepoel on time trial bikes.

The split had been reported in April but was not confirmed until both sides posted on social media this week. It comes as Quick-Step's own sponsorship era with the team ends after 24 years.

The Angels declined their option on manager Kurt Suzuki after one season and will seek a new manager and coaching staff for 2027, MLB.com reports; general manager John Mozeliak said the team's record was not a true reflection of Suzuki's abilities and offered him a role as a special assistant. Suzuki, 43, the first Hawaiian-born manager in the majors, played his last two seasons as a catcher with the Angels. Mozeliak's own contract is up in December.

South Africa's Pieter Coetze swam the short-course 50-meter backstroke in 22.09 at the Swimming World Cup stop in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, two hundredths under Kliment Kolesnikov's 22.11 world record, SwimSwam reports. Coetze has made his name over 100 and 200 meters, and the 50 back becomes an Olympic event at LA 2028, with places partly decided at next year's World Cup.

Andrei Vasilevskiy earned his 375th regular-season win as Tampa Bay beat Vegas 6-2 on Tuesday, moving past John Vanbiesbrouck into 19th on the NHL's all-time list. He got there in 605 games; each of the 18 goalies ahead of him needed at least 735, InGoal Magazine notes. Nikita Kucherov's three points in the game tied Steven Stamkos's franchise record of 1,137.