Through videocam footage shot more than three decades ago, Empire Skate, the latest ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, which airs on the network on June 30, captures a moment in time: a collection of New York City skateboard kids working at, and hanging around, the original Manhattan retail outlet of the influential streetwear brand Supreme. They were an irreverent bunch, seen drinking beer and rolling dice in the back room where only cool members of a skateboard crew were allowed to congregate. Clouds of smoke were not uncommon. “It was like Cheech and Chong back there,” says Steven Cales, one of those emerging pro skateboarders, in Empire Skate. 

Many customers at that first Supreme store didn’t receive service with a smile. “What is incredible about Supreme, even from its earliest days, is how menacingly New York it was,” says Washington Post fashion critic Rachel Tashjian in the film. Shoppers who didn’t fit in could expect a rude greeting. “Those kids could be really abusive to you,” notes another of the film’s commentators. 

“I was an asshole,” says the original Supreme store manager, the mononymous skateboarder known as Chappy, in Empire Skate. 

This was the origin of a multibillion-dollar business and one of the most consequential fashion brands in the world? 

That’s the crux of the case made by Empire Skate, which traces the global influence of the gritty New York City skateboarding scene that emerged in the early- to-mid-‘90s. (TIME Studios is an executive producer on the film.) 

“It’s one of the great American fashion brands, right up there with Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein,” Tashjian tells TIME. “I would say it’s the most important fashion brand of the 21st century, maybe even internationally. Tom Ford might give me a call and have something to say about that. But I think it’s accurate. It changed the way that people think about status and consumerism.” 

And it all started with the skateboarders. In Empire Skate, Tony Hawk points to 1991 as a low point for skateboarding. “Vert” skateboarding in half-pipes in California, the birthplace of skate, had fallen out of favor. But around 1993, skateboarding began to take off in New York City; the New Yorkers proffered a more spontaneous style, as they treated the city’s garbage cans, stairs, rails, and building walls as their own personal playground. If they happened to irritate security guards and pedestrians, that was all part of the fun. ”What was so important,” says skateboard legend Rodney Mullen in the film, “and I think shapes the world of today of skateboarding more than almost anything else, is what was going on on the East Coast, especially coming out of New York City.”

“In New York it went underground,” says Tony Alva, who like Hawk and Mullen is an iconic figure in the sport. “But at the same time, they’re actually reseeding and revitalizing skateboarding.” 

Enter James Jebbia. A designer and entrepreneur, Jebbia admired the style of these early-’90s skaters. “They would wear cool sh-t; they wouldn’t wear skate clothes,” Jebbia told GQ in written correspondence in 2019. “It would be Polo, it would be a Gucci belt, it would be Champion.” (Jebbia, who rarely conducts interviews, does not appear in the documentary; he declined to be interviewed for this article.) The budding skate scene needed a shop to serve the community, so Jebbia founded Supreme in 1994, opening the flagship outlet on Lafayette Street downtown. Supreme sold colorful skate decks as well as T-shirts and other items with the now-familiar logo, a red-block rectangle that said “Supreme,” in white font, within the lines. While chaos often unfolded on the sidewalk outside the store and in the back room, Jebbia demanded a gleaming showroom floor, with neatly folded T-shirts and colorful skate decks hanging on display. The setup felt unusual for a skate shop, which was typically cluttered with stuff. 

Supreme both catered to the tastes of the local skateboarders and called on them to market the brand’s authenticity to the rest of the world. While Jebbia didn’t skate himself, he scouted up-and-coming talent: in Empire Skate, Supreme team member Ryan Hickey says he was told Jebbia would sit in a diner and watch him skate across the street. Many of the young skaters who gravitated toward the Supreme shop appeared in the controversial 1995 NC-17 movie Kids, directed by Larry Clark, which included graphic dialogue about underage sex and a scene depicting sexual assault. Justin Pierce, a Supreme brand ambassador, co-starred in the movie, while other Supreme skaters played extras or had smaller roles. (Pierce died by suicide, in 2000, at the age of 25.) The film, which grossed $20.4 million at the box office on a $1.5 million budget, helped give the Supreme skaters a sort of It factor. They’d get into the hottest New York City clubs and parties and stamp Supreme stickers on lampposts all over the city. They were analog influencers.

Supreme took off from there. The company became known for their Thursday product drops, both online and in stores: its product scarcity model, which was copied throughout the industry, drove up demand and sparked a fervent resale market. “It is certainly one of the brands that helped make the T-shirt covetable,” Tashjian tells TIME. “Thanks to Supreme, the ‘drop’ has become a fashion buzzword,” GQ wrote in 2019. Brands like Burberry and Gucci have adopted the model. 

The company pioneered the concept of collaborations, helping expand its reach. Nike and Supreme first collaborated in the early 2000s: sneaker- and skate-heads lined up outside Supreme’s Manhattan and Tokyo outlets hours before opening. Partnerships with Louis Vuitton, Timberland, Lacoste, Dickies, and others followed; companies like Target and Vineyard Vines have rolled out similar partnerships. In 2018, Trevor Noah presented Jebbia with the menswear Designer of the Year honor at the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards. Artists such as Damien Hirst designed skate decks: everyone from Kermit the Frog to Madonna to actress Chloë Sevigny, who made her first film appearance in Kids, has appeared on Supreme products. Supreme and Oreo even partnered on a cookie: the wafer was Supreme red and came imprinted with the company logo.  

But as those halcyon early boom days recede into the ever-more distant past, Supreme’s challenge has been to stay hot. During the pandemic in 2020, when travel was restricted and many consumers had more disposable income to spend on clothes, participation in skateboarding, a socially distant outdoor activity, spiked, and VF Corporation—whose portfolio includes the North Face, Vans, and Timberland, bought Supreme for $2.1 billion. Supreme’s sales, however, slowed: for the 12 months ending in March 2023, Supreme generated $523.1 million in revenues, down 7% from the prior year. In the fall of 2024, Supreme changed hands again, this time from VC Corporation to EssilorLuxottica, a Europe-based company known for its eyewear portfolio, including Ray-Ban and Oakley, for $1.5 billion.  

“I think Supreme almost became kind of overexposed,” says Sky Canaves, fashion analyst at eMarketer, a research firm. “It’s hard to preserve that sense of exclusivity and scarcity when the product looks like it’s everywhere on everyone.”

Negative headlines have also created headaches. Creative director Tremaine Emory left Supreme in 2023, citing “systemic racism” at the company and claiming that Jebbia had removed images which included depictions of lynching and slavery from a collaboration with Arthur Jafa, a Black artist. (Supreme said in a statement at the time that it disagreed with Emory’s characterization.) In May, New York City pro skateboarder and longtime Supreme ambassador Tyshawn Jones, 26, filed a $26 million defamation lawsuit against the brand, claiming that Supreme effectively tried to blacklist him after terminating his sponsorship contract with the brand. (Supreme declined to comment on the lawsuit.)

Still, Supreme, which has stores in several other major U.S. cities, as well as London, Paris, Milan, and a half-dozen locations in Japan, has entered new markets, opening stores and e-commerce businesses in South Korea in 2023 and China in 2024. Before the sale of Supreme to EssilorLuxottica, VF Corporation reported positive sales momentum during the second half of 2023 into the start of 2024. A few months ago, Supreme opened its first store in Miami. 

With 18 outlets in only seven countries, Supreme has more room to expand. “It’s great for young people to have conversations about what’s cool and not cool,” says Tashjian. “But it’s a wonderful brand with staying power. At this point, it is a company that will be around for a long time.”      

Not too shabby for a bunch of skateboard tricksters, just hanging around the shop.

Correction, June 26

The original version of this story misstated the name of the skateboarder who said he was scouted by Supreme founder James Jebbia from a diner. It was Ryan Hickey, not Steven Cales.

A storm has arrived. The Oklahoma City Thunder is the class of basketball.

OKC completed one of the most sterling NBA seasons in history, winning the championship on Sunday night after overwhelming the Indiana Pacers, 103-91, in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. OKC won 68 regular season games—only six other teams have won as many, or more, in a season—before rattling off another 16 victories in the playoffs to finish the wire-to-wire job. The Thunder, who relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008, won the franchise’s first title since moving south: the Seattle Supersonics won the 1979 NBA championship.

Oklahoma City blew a late lead in Game 1 of the Finals—allowing Indiana to steal a win on OKC’s home floor—making its championship quest that much more difficult. Indiana had pulled off improbable comebacks all playoffs long. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA regular season and Finals MVP who finished with 29 points in the Thunder’s Game 7 victory, gave OKC a fourth quarter cushion through his passing. With about 9 minutes left in the game, he dropped a clever dish to Cason Wallace underneath the hoop: Wallace’s layup put the Thunder up 86-68. Thunder big man Chet Holmgren blocked a shot on Indiana’s next possession—Holgren finished with five blocked shots, a record for a Finals Game 7. Gilgeous-Alexander drew in the defense, then spotted Jalen Williams wide open on the wing. Gilgeous-Alexander hit Willams, whose three-pointer gave OKC a commanding 89-68 lead. Gilgeous-Alexender finished the game with a dozen assists, and just one turnover. Indiana fought back to cut the lead to 10 with under two minutes remaining. But the victory was never really in doubt.

Indiana tried its best to overcome heartbreak in Game 7: Tyrese Haliburton, the Pacers’ star point guard who was playing with a calf strain in his right leg, suffered an achilles injury in the first quarter. He lay on the court in agony, with his teammates surrounding him. Haliburton, who hit the winning shot in Indiana’s Game 1 victory, left the game, and did not return: he’s likely to miss time next season too. He was off to a fast start, having sunk a trio of first-quarter treys. On crutches, all Haliburton could do after the game was greet his despondent teammates in a Paycomm Center hallway.

Indiana led at halftime, 48-47: the Pacers, whose dominant 108-91 victory over OKC in Game 6 on Thursday forced just the seventh Game 7 of an NBA Finals in 38 years, wouldn’t fold. Oklahoma City pushed the lead to 65-56 about five minutes into the second half. T.J. McConnell of Indiana put on a third quarter show, making six baskets in the last seven minutes of the quarter. The problem: no other Pacer scored.

OKC finished the third quarter with an 81-68 advantage. It took Indiana nearly five minutes to score in the fourth quarter: the Thunder put on a stunning defensive clinic. Indiana tripled OKC’s turnover total (21-7). Without Halliburton on the floor as a playmaker, Indiana had no answers. At one point, Bennedict Mathurin of Indiana fought off the swarming OKC defense by just throwing the ball against the backcourt, retrieving his own miss and drawing a foul. It was a smart move, born of desperation.

Sam Presti, who has led the OKC franchise’s basketball operations since 2007, has assembled an enviable roster that’s built to last. It’s the youngest team to win a title in 48 seasons. Presti acquired Gilgeous-Alexander in a trade involving All-Star Paul George in 2019—the Thunder turned one of the draft picks in that deal into Williams, who averaged 23.6 points per game in the series, including a 40-point outburst in OKC’s key Game 5 win.

This series, involving a duel between small-market NBA teams, struggled to draw big ratings. Fans who tuned out, due to lack of city sizzle, missed out. And now the NBA’s new storyline is set, for the next five years or more. 

How far can OKC go?

President Donald Trump hosted players from the Juventus soccer team at the White House on Wednesday, asking their opinions on transgender women in sports and discussing the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.

The meeting came ahead of the Italian club’s first match of the Club World Cup against Emirati team Al-Ain, which they ultimately won 5-0. The tournament is taking place across the United States, with the final being played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 13.

While talking to reporters about the issue of trans athletes, Trump turned to the players, asking, “Could a woman make your team, fellas?” In response, Juventus teammates, including American players Timothy Weah and Weston McKennie, awkwardly smiled and shrugged without giving an answer.

The President then turned to the club’s general manager Damien Comolli, asking the same question. In response, Comolli said, “We have a very good women’s team.” The team won the latest Italian league championship.

In February, Trump signed an Executive Order banning transgender athletes from playing in women’s sports.

Weah spoke about the interaction afterwards, saying he was caught by surprise over the “weird” moment. “I was kind of like, I just want to play football … They just told us that we have to go, and I had no choice but to go. So I guess it was a cool experience, obviously being in the White House as a first time… But I’m not one for the politics, so it wasn’t that exciting,” he said.

The U.S. forward mentioned Trump’s comments on the conflict between Israel and Iran, which also took place during the visit.

The President also spoke to reporters about his feud with Tucker Carlson and their latest disagreements about the conflict. With Juventus players behind him, Trump said: “I asked Tucker, ‘Are you OK with nuclear weapons being in the hands of Iran?’ and he sort of didn’t like that.

“Maybe it [the conflict] will end very quickly, but there’s no way that you can allow, whether you fight or not, you can allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon because the entire world will blow up,” Trump continued.

Juventus News Live, a fan-operated site for updates on the team, reacted to the meeting, writing on social media: “Juventus squad in the background as Trump answers questions on Iran….. what a time to be alive.”

Trump has been regularly involved with engagements regarding the Club World Cup. In March, the President unveiled the tournament’s new trophy alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Trump also announced a special task force for the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by the United States alongside Mexico and Canada.

Since then, the trophy has been on display a number of times during press conferences and gatherings in the Oval Office, including on Elon Musk’s last day working in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

After RJ Luis Jr., the second-team All-American college basketball player from St. John’s University, put his name in the transfer portal in late March, the offers came pouring in. Luis, a 6-ft. 7-in. junior, was the top player in the transfer market, and according to his camp, he received starting offers in the $3 million to $4 million range to play for Kansas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Indiana, and other top programs. 

Before the NCAA began allowing Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) four years ago, staying in college was considered a financial risk for basketball prospects. Any injuries suffered in school could imperil future professional earnings. Now, however, athletes can earn seven figures a season through sponsorship deals with third parties and pooled booster funds from a school’s alumni and fan base, known as collectives. And on June 6, a federal judge approved a court settlement that cleared the way for schools to directly compensate athletes themselves, rubber-stamping the end of amateurism in big-time college sports. For many players these days, it makes more sense to return to campus for a guaranteed payday. 

Especially for a player like Luis, who unlike, say, the consensus No. 1 pick Duke freshman Cooper Flagg, is by no means a top NBA prospect guaranteed to make more than $3 million in his rookie season. Luis’ final college game—a 3 for 17 shooting nightmare in a second-round NCAA tournament loss to Arkansas that, in a controversial decision by St. John’s coach Rick Pitino, ended with Luis on the bench—did his draft stock no favors. In fact, some mock boards don’t have Luis being drafted at all.

And yet on May 28 Luis’ agent revealed that he would be going against the 2025 athletic grain and staying in the NBA draft, which he had entered in March as well. To many, this decision came as a surprise. He turned down the transfer-portal offers, giving up those riches–Indiana and North Carolina declined to comment; Kansas and Arkansas did not reply by press time–and if he doesn’t get drafted, he can’t go back to college. But Luis insists it’s the right move.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a risk,” says Luis, 22, on June 11 from Charlotte, before conducting a workout with the Hornets, who currently have the fourth, 33rd, and 34th picks in the draft (the first round will take place on June 25 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, while the second round unfolds the next day). “If I do what I have to do in the NBA, then I can make even way more money than that. So it’s not even about the money. Because if it was, I would have gone back to college. But it’s just trying to set myself up for the future, to be honest. I think I had an amazing year. What better time would it be to go to the next level and pursue my dreams of playing in the NBA?”

In other words, Luis is taking a gamble on himself. 

“That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life,” says Luis. “I’ve had countless people telling me what my limitations are. But I end up passing their expectations. So yeah, I’d say I’m betting on myself. I’ll always take me, 100%.” 

“You’ve gotta set up your plan, man, and stick with your plan,” says Reggie Charles Luis, RJ’s dad, who played professionally overseas in 10 different countries, including the Dominican Republic, Spain, Argentina, North Macedonia, and Germany. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

Luis grew up in Miami, where his mother Verito Luis, who worked at a community center, insisted he sample a variety of sports: soccer, basketball, tennis, baseball, karate. A self-described late bloomer, RJ Luis says he didn’t start taking basketball all that seriously until the summer after 10th grade, when he earned a spot on the Dominican Republic’s under-17 national team for a tournament in Puerto Rico, featuring teams from Central America and the Caribbean. Coming out of high school, he had offers from only a couple of lower-level Division 1 schools. He did a post-grad year at a prep school and earned a scholarship to UMass, a mid-major whose coach, Frank Martin, is known for his intensity. “I learned how to play some defense,” Luis says. 

After a productive freshman season for the Minutemen in 2022-2023, Luis leaped at the chance to transfer to St. John’s, located in the New York City borough of Queens, to play for Pitino, the Hall of Famer who had just taken over the program. “I’ve heard a lot of coaches say they work out their guys all the time,” says Luis. “To actually see Coach Pitino keep his word and actually do it, I was very intrigued.”

Injuries slowed him his sophomore season. Luis fractured his hand in preseason, and shin splints in both legs limited his practice time. “I was just very out of rhythm,” says Luis. Soon after the season—St. John’s failed to make the NCAA tournament—he underwent shin surgery and spent some three to four months in recovery. “The first month and a half, I couldn’t walk,” says Luis. “My dad actually had to carry me everywhere. I was in a wheelchair. It was pretty bad.” 

Once he could move about, Luis spent time in the summer working with his father trying to remove a hitch in his shot. The practice paid off. His junior season was spectacular. Luis improved his three-point shooting and led St. John’s to its first Big East regular-season title in 40 years and its first conference tournament championship since 2000. He was named Big East Player of the Year. 

Even more important than the individual accolades, Luis, Pitino—the national coach of the year—and the Red Storm revived a former national power that had been stagnating, in the media capital of the world no less, for decades. St. John’s packed Madison Square Garden throughout February and March. The Tonight Show featured the team.

So the early NCAA tournament exit was devastating, especially for the Red Storm’s long-suffering fans. St. John’s was seeded No. 2, in the West region: Arkansas, the 10-seed, upset the Red Storm 75-66, on March 22, in the second round. Luis had struggled throughout the game, but with 4:56 left, he made a pair of free throws to cut Arkansas’ lead to two, 64-62. Sometimes, seeing the ball go through the basket, even on foul shots, can help a shooter’s confidence. 

“That’s what my mind-set was,” says Luis. “Knocked these two free throws down. Cut it to a one-possession game, try to slow down myself. And, you know, anything can happen in five minutes. This is college basketball.” 

Instead, Pitino subbed out Luis after the second shot. And incredibly, he never put his All-American back in. 

The decision was especially baffling because it’s not like anyone else on St. John’s was making shots in Luis’ stead: the team finished the game shooting 2 for 22 from three-point range. “I was just shocked and just confused,” says Luis. “I was just trying to stay as calm as possible and not do anything or make it worse.” 

Luis had expected Pitino to give him a pep talk and put him right back in the game. After all, coaching players up is his job. “He’s done it before,” says Luis. “There have been other games where he’s spoken to me. Obviously I couldn’t make a shot. But the whole team, we were just off. Nobody could make a basket. So I don’t know.” But as the minutes ticked away, it became apparent that Luis’ incredible season was going to end with him as a bench spectator. 

Pitino has defended his choice. “It was the right move because of where he was mentally,” Pitino said on the VICE TV docuseries Pitino: Red Storm Rising, adding, “He was forcing shots, and it was affecting the rest of his game … 100% the right decision, not playing RJ Luis in that game, 100%.” 

Luis says he hasn’t spoken to Pitino since early April, around the time Luis informed him he was putting his hat in the NBA draft ring, while entering the transfer portal as a backup plan in case he changed his mind. While Luis, naturally, disagrees with Pitino’s decision to bench him, he declines to knock his former coach. “Just trying to take the high road and just end it on good terms,” says Luis, who tells TIME that if he had decided to stay in college, he would have returned to St. John’s. By putting his name in the portal, he was just keeping all options open. 

Meanwhile, Pitino has publicly touted Luis’ potential. “He’s going to be a great pro,” Pitino said before throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a New York Yankees game in the Bronx in early June. 

When asked if the benching hurt his draft prospects, Luis pauses for seven seconds to consider his answer. “I mean, it probably just brought up those ‘what ifs,’” says Luis. “Not necessarily hurt, just trying to figure out, like, what did he do to get put in that position?”

Luis, who hopes to be the first Ecuadorian-American to play in the NBA—his mom was born in Ecuador, his dad in the Dominican Republic—has worked out for about a dozen teams over the past month or so: he says he’s performed best in front of the Golden State Warriors, the Phoenix Suns, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Detroit Pistons, and the Orlando Magic. He’s blocking out the mock draft boards that have all NBA teams passing on him. “All that stuff is speculation,” he says. “In the past, we’ve seen a bunch of guys, where they have them at a certain number, and they end up not even close to where they’re supposed to be. So I’m really just controlling what I can control.” 

He says teams tell him he’s likely to be a late first-round or early second-round selection. He believes he’s worthy of a first-round status. “One hundred percent,”  says Luis. “My game is more applicable to the NBA. Just the spacing and the speed of the game. I’m still working on my three-point shot, but I’m not worried about that. I know I’m going to get that down.” 

His message to NBA GMs who pass on drafting him: “They’re missing out,” he says. “And they’re going to have to face me one day.” And for all the hoops fans who think he’s making the wrong decision by going pro now and not cashing in on one more year of college? “Thank you for all the support,” he says. “Do not worry about me.” 

Formula One teams treat their trade secrets like matters of national security. In a motor-sport where milliseconds separate champions from also-rans, hiding technical know-how from opponents is as key as a fresh pair of tires. So when Joseph Kosinski, director of F1 the Movie—the summer-blockbuster hopeful starring Brad Pitt and hitting theaters and IMAX on June 27—tried to gain access to the inner workings of Formula One, a rush of déjà vu hit him. After all, Kosinski made Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 naval-aviator smash that grossed $1.5 billion, with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense. “It was the same level of security,” he says, “that I experienced when I went to some secret bases.”

Kosinski spent a year bugging Toto Wolff, team principal of the Mercedes–AMG Petronas F1 team, for permission to film at the Mercedes race simulator. Most Mercedes employees themselves can’t access this space at headquarters, 70 miles northwest of London. But Wolff finally relented. So in the movie viewers will see Pitt and Damson Idris, who respectively play Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce, drivers for the fictional APXGP team, practicing on Mercedes’ high-priced toys. “We were keen on contributing to making this a success,” says Wolff, who along with F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali is credited as an executive producer. “And that means you cannot be half pregnant and say, ‘Yeah, we’re playing along, but no, we don’t want to let you into our factory.’”

The F1 filmmakers still made post-production alterations to protect Mercedes’ intellectual property. All sides had to compromise, and deliver, in unique ways to bring F1 to life. It was all part of a delicate balancing act between a big-budget production team, led by Jerry Bruckheimer, used to calling its own shots, and a $3.4 billion sport with a dedicated global fan base, whose participants could not afford distractions just to appear in some Hollywood fantasy. Sure, F1 was allowed to bring its cast and crew to actual races across the globe. But they’d have to film during downtime at the track, or just blend into the background. “The live sport,” says Domenicali, “I cannot touch.” 

The stakes were similarly high in a movie industry where original stories struggle to compete with familiar IP; box-office success would be meaningful for future original ideas. And the involvement of Apple, whose studio arm backed the film—which will live on Apple TV+ after F1’s Warner Bros. Pictures–distributed theatrical run—added another element of complexity. “It was very, very complicated trying to have Apple and F1, two massive organizations that are very controlling of their own brands, to play along,” says Kosinski. “But the fact that Stefano had the vision for the film, and Apple took the gamble on this movie, here we are, four years later. We’re about to take it out to the world.”

Read more: The 37 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2025

F1’s origin story begins a decade ago, when Kosinski was developing a script called “Go Like Hell,” which later became the 2019 Oscar-winning auto-racing hit Ford v Ferrari. Kosinski had Tom Cruise and Pitt attached to the roles that would eventually be played by Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Cruise and Pitt even did a script read at Cruise’s house. But Kosinski dropped out, mainly over budget conflicts, and turned his attention to Top Gun with Cruise and Bruckheimer. During the pandemic, Kosinski caught the racing bug again while bingeing Formula One: Drive to Survive, Netflix’s series chronicling Formula One’s behind-the-scenes intrigue. Kosinski emailed seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, a cinephile who planned to join the Top Gun cast before realizing he couldn’t swing that and chase championships. Kosinski told him he needed his help making the most authentic auto-racing movie ever.

Kosinski got Hamilton—a producer on the film who makes a cameo—Bruckheimer, and Pitt on board. The goal was to gain access to F1 races and factories so they wouldn’t have to CGI the whole thing. In early 2022, Kosinski, Bruckheimer, and Pitt met with Domenicali in London. Domenicali accompanied Kosinski and Pitt at a private Top Gun screening, to give the F1 boss a taste of the whizbang effect such a film could bring to his sport. He saw the potential. A movie fronted by Pitt could corral a mass audience and leave them wanting to know more about F1. “This has always been the strategy,” says Domenicali. “To connect with new people, new markets.”

Read more: How Lewis Hamilton Finally Got His Ferrari Red

Still, some F1 race teams remained skeptical. They were nervous about being portrayed in an unflattering light. “Somebody’s got to be the villain,” says Bruckheimer. And while there is a minor character, unassociated with any actual F1 race team, who emerges as a foil to Hayes, Bruckheimer made clear that the story centers on the tension between two drivers, the aging Hayes and the up-and-comer Pearce, on the same fictional team. That’s a familiar dynamic: both drivers are seeking individual success, and want to beat the pants off the other guy. At least nominally, however, they’re supposed to play nice on the track. At Mercedes, for example, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the 2016 F1 champion, famously clashed. “It became real hostile,” recalls Wolff. 

Mercedes helped convert cars from Formula Two, the minor-league circuit, into machines that could pass for F1 cars. The filmmakers had a half-dozen at their disposal: if they wanted to film a scene in which Pitt’s APXGP car passes a Ferrari, they’d stage that action with their own cars at an F1 track between practice and qualifying sessions before a race. Later, they would “skin” the Ferrari design over the production car to make it look like a Ferrari on the screen. (Kosinski used this skinning technique with the Top Gun jets.) They could also capture actual race footage and skin the APXGP car over the Red Bulls and Ferraris. The production team installed 15 camera mounts on its cars, filming with up to four at once, to capture Pitt and Idris in their cockpits, and action on the track. “Brad Pitt, he’s driving the car,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services. “It’s not blue screen or CGI.” Both actors learned to drive as fast as 180 m.p.h., not too far off from real F1 drivers’ top speeds of around 220 m.p.h.

“These guys were fast,” says Javier Bardem, who plays Ruben Cervantes, the owner of the struggling APXGP team who recruits Pitt’s Hayes, at a Florida coin laundry, in a Hail Mary attempt to lift his squad. “The first time I saw them racing, I said to Joe, ‘What’s insurance got to say about that?’ Joe goes, ‘What insurance?’”

F1 filmed at 14 races during the 2023 and 2024 F1 seasons, across three continents. The production reportedly cost more than $200 million. During some races, APXGP had their own garage, paddock, and perch along the pitwall, where the fictional team principal, technical director, and race engineers sit. “We designed it ourselves,” says Bruckheimer. “One of the Mercedes designers came in there and said, ‘Sh-t, I’m going to lose my job.’”

Much like the actual Formula One drivers, the actors needed to be on their games—even the ones who never sat in the driver’s seat. Right before the start of the 2023 British Grand Prix, F1 shot a scene in which Cervantes introduces Hayes to a team board member, played by Tobias Menzies. It was like performing a live stage play in front of more than 150,000 spectators: Formula One wasn’t about to hold up the race for repeated takes. “It was terrifying,” says Bardem. “I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t f-ck it up, Javier. Don’t f-ck it up.’” He didn’t.

The production crescendoed in Abu Dhabi last December, when, after the actual podium celebration recognizing Lando Norris’ victory, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, Mercedes’ George Russell, and one of the APXGP drivers mounted the podium to celebrate the fake F1 finish. Wolff filmed his cameo in Abu Dhabi: he tells Idris’ Pearce to call him if he wants to jump ship to Mercedes. Wolff wasn’t impressed with his own work. “I don’t think I’m going to follow Arnold Schwarzenegger as the next big Austrian thing,” he says with his pronounced accent. 

While the film puts a premium on authenticity to please the carheads, it also strives to attract general moviegoers, with its soaring Hans Zimmer score, high-speed crashes, the Hayes-Pearce conflict, and a romance between Hayes and the team’s technical director, Kate McKenna (Oscar nominee Kerry Condon). The sensitivities surrounding a workplace relationship between F1’s (fictional) first female team tech director and one of her drivers—which would seem quite scandalous if it went public in real life—did cross Kosinski’s mind. But when he floated it to F1 insiders, no one objected. Romances within the tight-knit world are relatively common. “I’m not worried,” says Domenicali. “And by the way, it gives you the right Hollywood touch.”

The producers insist feedback has been positive. According to Domenicali and Cue, when test audiences unfamiliar with F1 are asked, after watching, if anyone would now be interested in attending a race, hands go up. Stakeholders also hope it gives diverse audiences the itch to work in the industry. “It’s going to inspire female engineers and mechanics,” says Hamilton. “It’s going to inspire people from all over, from all different backgrounds.”

Sounds like lofty expectations for popcorn fare. But the F1 portrayed on the big screen—globe-trotting from Italy to Japan to Vegas to the Middle East, with its fireworks on and off the track—undoubtedly has its upsides.

Aerodynamics lesson, anyone?

Sports teams around the world are backing a first of its kind playbook to help the industry measure its carbon footprint. The Carbon Methodology and Calculator for Sport, launched by sustainability and social impact consultancy Think Beyond, aims to create a consistent standard by which teams can measure emissions and make inroads towards climate action.  

Thirty-five organisations, including World Athletics, Liverpool FC, and LIV Golf have already adopted the approach. The playbook’s calculator measures the environmental footprint of everything from fan travel to merchandise. “If you claim the economic impact, then you have to account for the environmental footprint of it,” Susie Tomson, senior partner at Think Beyond, told TIME.

Until now, the industry has lacked a standard, sector-wide approach to measuring its climate impact. The playbook’s methodology aligns with the most widely used method for measuring emissions, known as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, as well as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Sports for Climate Action Framework, and the Science Based Targets initiative—but it has translated the frameworks into user-friendly, sports-specific terms. 

“We wanted to make sure that we’re aligned to Greenhouse Gas Protocol, but we’re talking sport language,” says Tomson. 

Once teams plug in their data, a dashboard shows emissions by category, and will help them track changes year over year. Teams can also break their year down into different footprints, to compare the climate impact of various events throughout the season. 

The playbook is part of a wider industry effort to go green. Many sports organizations have pledged to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2040 under the U.N. Sports for Climate Action Framework. The 2024 Super Bowl and the Paris Olympics were both powered entirely by renewable energy. 

But challenges remain. A 2020 estimate found that the global sports industry is responsible for approximately 350 million tonnes of CO2. One study by Scientists for Global Responsibility found that the carbon emissions from the FIFA World Cup alone is equivalent to that of between 31,500 and 51,500 cars driving for one year. 

At the same time, the industry is also grappling with how to keep games going in the face of climate change. A 2022 study found that half of the former Winter Olympic host cities could be unable to sponsor winter games by 2050 due to melting snow and ice. And in many parts of the world, the impacts of climate change are already impacting events—the U.S. Tennis Association introduced an extreme heat policy after the 2018 U.S. Open where players faced off in 100 degree temperatures at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City. Meanwhile NFL players are swapping out their traditional uniforms for ones in heat reflecting colors.

Think Beyond plans to publish an annual State of Sport Carbon Report, which will show where organizations are successfully reducing emissions, and where growth remains. Tomson hopes that the calculator can be used across the industry—from the Olympics to amateur teams. “The more people who use it, the better traction we’re going to get,” she says. “The more groundswell [of people], all talking the same language, measuring the same thing.”

The sports moment of the year started out innocently enough: Jannik Sinner, already up a set at the French Open final on Sunday, led Carlos Alcaraz of Spain 3-0, in the second set. Sinner was playing steady tennis, the wingspan created by his wiry, lanky body allowing him to lunge at Alcaraz’s blistering shots. Up to this point, Sinner, who hails from Italy and recently enjoyed an audience with Pope Leo XIV, hadn’t lost a single set at this French Open. Maybe the three-month suspension Sinner served over a doping dispute this year had left him fresh for this French Open. 

Maybe this was just his moment. 

But Alcaraz, whose fighting abilities naturally call to mind his fellow countryman Rafael Nadal—the 14-time French Open champion who was honored at the start of the tournament, and who has a statue in his honor at Roland Garros—wasn’t done. Alcaraz roared back to force a second-set tiebreaker. Sinner prevailed to go up two sets to love. Alcaraz made it interesting, but he had never come back from two sets down to win a match. 

Alcaraz got back in his groove to take the third set, 6-4. Sinner, though, was all set to finish it out in the fourth. Sinner had a 5-3 lead, and on Alcaraz’s serve, had three championship points. Three chances to win a third straight major and start thinking about a calendar-year Grand Slam, something no man has accomplished since Rod Laver did it in 1969. 

After the match, Alcaraz said he tried not to think of his predicament at this moment. On the first point, a rally ended with Sinner sending a shot long on the run. On the second one, Alcaraz’s second serve had enough kick on it to force a Sinner backhand return into the net. Sinner stuck a forehand into the net during a baseline rally on the third point: he had squandered a golden opportunity.

By this point, the Roland Garros crowd was cheering wildly for Alcaraz. It was nothing personal against Sinner. The fans were just impressed that he rose from the dead. 

And they wanted to see these two transcendent young players keep going at it. 

Alcaraz sent the crowd further into a frenzy by breaking Sinner’s serve to force a fourth-set tiebreaker, which Alcaraz won convincingly. Sinner seemed to struggle with fatigue at the start of the fifth set. He started limping slightly after charging in for a short ball. Alcaraz took advantage of Sinner’s diminished state to pull a couple of drop shots out of his hat: all that running and lunging Sinner was doing at the start was no more. Alcaraz went up 3-1 in the deciding set. He was in total control. Sinner had to be thinking about the three match points he squandered in the fourth set. Maybe Alcaraz would toy with Sinner the rest of the way.

Read More: Serena Williams Is Still at the Top of Her Game

Now it was Sinner’s turn to flip the switch. With Alcaraz serving at 5-4 to win his second straight French Open title, he tried another drop shot: this time, Sinner summoned enough life force to get a racket on the ball right before it touched the clay. He broke Alcaraz’s serve and we were off to a match-deciding, 10-point tiebreaker. This breathtaking final had already exceeded five hours.    

Alcaraz won out from there. He took the first seven points of the tiebreaker. On match point, he fired a running passing-shot rocket up the sideline past Sinner. Somehow, at the end, Alcaraz appeared to have plenty left in the tank. 

Alcaraz won his fifth major in just as many finals appearances, 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6 (10-2). The match took five hours, 29 minutes, making it the longest French Open final in history, and the second longest major final of all time (Novak Djokovic and Nadal went 5 hours, 53 minutes, at the 2012 Australian Open).

“This was one of the all-timers,” said John McEnroe on the TNT broadcast after it ended. 

This was the first time Alcaraz, 22, and Sinner, 23, met in a Grand Slam championship. Tennis cannot be in better hands, for the next decade or more. 

“Honestly I don’t know what I did,” Alcaraz, like the rest of us at a loss for words, said on TNT afterward. “I don’t know what happened.” 

But it did. The sports moment of 2025. And one of the best duels in the history of tennis.

Call Coco Gauff the queen of clay.

The American phenom, just 21 years old, won the second Grand Slam championship of her career on Saturday, outlasting world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 at the French Open final in Paris. She’s the first American to win the French since Serena Williams did so in 2015: no American man has won a singles title on Roland Garros clay since Andre Agassi in 1999. 

Gauff’s effort was remarkably resilient. She trailed in the first set 4-1, with Sabalenka on serve and up 40-0. Viewers could be forgiven for looking ahead to the second set. Or wondering if Gauff’s experience at the 2022 French Open final, where she lost to Iga Świątek in straight sets, was haunting her. Gauff said she had anxiety attacks before that match, and was never really in it.  

On Saturday, however, Gauff countered by winning twelve straight points. As the 2023 U.S. Open champion, Gauff is now a more experienced competitor than she was three years ago. And an improved player. The windy conditions in Paris seemed to bother Sabalenka’s serve more than it did Gauff’s. They played a grinding first set, featuring a few long games and impressive rallies. Serving for the set at 5-4, Sabalenka couldn’t finish off Gauff, who saved two set points and finally broke Sabalenka on her fifth chance. Later, a Gauff backhand winner, on the run, sent the set into a tiebreaker, where Sabalenka did prevail.  

But Sabalenka couldn’t carry the momentum over to the second set. Gauff’s love break put her up 5-2 in the set, and she held serve at love to finish it out. Sabalenka could only shake her head in dismay.

Read More: Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now

In the third set, Sabalanka double faulted to give Gauff a break, allowing the American to go up 2-1. Sabalenka charged on Gauff a short ball, but smashed it into the net to give Gauff a 3-1 advantage. Sabalenka fought back to tie the set up at 3-3, but while on serve she double-faulted and shouted at her coaching box. Gauff won the game to go up 4-3. 

Both players held the next two games. With Gauff serving for the title at 5-4, she got down to business. Collected all match long while Sabalenka seemed to lose her cool at times, her serve was on point. Sabalenka kept battling, but on Gauff’s second championship point, she sent a cross-court shot wide, ending the match. Gauff’s back fell to the Roland Garros clay. 

She went up into the stands to hug her mom Candi, dad Corey—who doesn’t sit in the courtside box during matches, his nerves too frayed—her coach and others.

The match took two hours and 38 minutes. Sabalenka committed 70 unforced errors, to Gauff’s 30.  

“You’re a fighter,” said Sabalenka to Gauff after the match. 

The next major tournament for Gauff is Wimbledon, where she first burst onto the global stage a half dozen years ago, when she beat Venus Williams and reached the fourth round, aged just 15. Then the U.S. Open in New York City, to try to regain that throne. 

Sabalenka seemed minutes away from running away from that first set, and perhaps the match; a win would have given her two of the last three Grand Slam titles, and made her the unquestioned dominant player in tennis. Not so fast. Gauff’s just too fast—and right now, the best—on clay. And she’s all set for a monster summer.  

Kim Ng, who became the first female GM in the history of major North American men’s pro team sports when the Miami Marlins hired her to run the team’s baseball operations in 2020, is taking on a new challenge: building softball’s version of the WNBA. In April, Ng was named commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL), a new professional start-up that begins its inaugural season on June 7. Ng (pronounced Ang, like Angus) spoke to TIME about why she’s taking on her new role, the strategy driving the AUSL’s rollout, and her future vision for the sport, which has garnered impressive TV ratings for coverage of its college postseason and returns to the Olympics in 2028.

(This interview has been condensed for length and clarity) 

You left your job as the GM of the Miami Marlins in 2023, after leading the team to its first postseason appearance—following a full regular season—in 20 years. [Management wanted to install a president of baseball operations above her, and Ng has said she and the team owner “were not completely aligned.”] So before joining Athletes Unlimited as an adviser in 2024 and ultimately taking the AUSL commissioner job, what were you up to?

That was eight months of being on my own. Doing my own thing, trying to live life a little bit. I had calculated that this is my first significant period of time off since being a sophomore in high school. Played some golf, visited a couple of friends, and just tried to get back into the swing of being a real person again. I was probably talking to [Athletes Unlimited co-founder and CEO] Jon Patricof for a couple of months and also doing some speaking engagements. It went by fast. Too fast.

Why did you take this job? 

Part of this was what I spent the last 30 years doing, and that is trying to create opportunities for women, paving that path, mentoring. Making it easier for those coming behind me. I did that all through my baseball years, and now, having seen what was going on in the women’s pro-sports landscape, it was incredibly exciting to think about being a part of it and lending my name to that effort. Taking on this role of being the very outward-facing, let’s say, shepherd of the sport, I felt like I was ready for it. 

You grew up playing softball and played at the University of Chicago. What drew you to the game? 

First of all, my dad was a big baseball fan and grew up watching the Yankees. Big fan of the late-1970s Yankees. This was the sport my dad and I shared. Softball is really so similar to baseball. I’m not sure they’re quite interchangeable, but in my mind, they are. And I was pretty good at it.

Other attempts at women’s pro softball haven’t enjoyed sustained success. Why are you confident that the momentum that we’ve seen in other women’s team sports in the U.S. in the last few years, particularly in basketball and soccer, is going to translate to softball? 

No. 1, I think Jon Patricof and [Athletes Unlimited co-founder] Jonathan Soros are very good listeners. That was one of the things that attracted me to the group. Then I think the greater acceptance from society, and how we view women and their ability as athletes, just led to this incredible moment. And the college metrics have been there for years. How do you try to connect those college fans with the pro space? There have to be these bridges to fill that gap. The softball landscape wants to be galvanized. 

In the inaugural AUSL season, the four teams—the Bandits, Blaze, Talons, and Volts—don’t have home markets. Rather, the league will barnstorm to different locations—Rosemont, Ill., Wichita, Kan., Sulphur, La., Chattanooga, Tenn., Norman, Okla., Omaha, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Round Rock, Texas, and Tuscaloosa, Ala.—to play games around the U.S. What’s the strategy behind that? 

There was a very short period of time in which to launch. So Jon and Jonathan just wanted to get out there and really get an understanding of the markets. When you’re talking about partnering with venues and markets, you want to have an understanding of who the stakeholders are, who the actors in the landscape are, and you want to make sure that you have really good partners who want you to be there, who are committed to making the partnership work. It’s like dating. You’re going to date before you get married. Now’s the dating process,

From 2011 to 2020, you worked in the MLB front office, and on May 29, MLB announced it was investing in the AUSL. Can you characterize the scale of MLB’s investment?  

Listen, money is very important, but really for us, a lot of this is about how you’re building your business. And it’s making sure that you’re creating long-term revenue streams and proving to potential sponsors that there is support behind you. It’s really about people believing in what you are bringing to the table, people believing in women’s pro sports, people believing in women’s pro softball and our future. I think that’s what the MLB deal signals to the world.

And what do you think MLB support, financially and otherwise, allows the AUSL to do that it might not have otherwise been able to do without it? 

MLB and softball are from the same family. There’s no reason why the fans from MLB should not consider softball to be their fraternal twin. I think, in terms of amplification and visibility, when you start thinking about the fan bases, this is a fan base that has been built over 100 years. And it’s a fan base that spans 26 markets. So you’re talking about incredible reach. When you draw these fans over, it’s going to be a great meeting between softball fans and baseball fans. 

How does the reentry of softball into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics—the games will be played in Oklahoma City—play into the AUSL strategy?

It is very much in the forefront of our minds. It is incredibly helpful that we have the Olympics coming down the road, that it will be based in the United States, and that we have some runway to lead up to it and to make it a part of our intentional strategy. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Olympics, for this sport, has been the main driver of the most eyeballs in a short period of time. 

Do you miss running an MLB team?

At times. There are specific times of the year that I thought were just so cool, like spring training, and the trading deadline, and the feeling when you know you’re in the hunt to improve your team. Being able to see those really tangible results quickly. Those are some of the items that I miss about being with an MLB team. If I wasn’t working in this job, I think I would miss the camaraderie. And I think there’s no other camaraderie like being with a team. I think you get to know each other well, very well. You spend a lot of time with each other, and there’s a lot of trash-talking and fun that you engage in on a fairly regular basis.

Given your turnaround of the Marlins, a team that hasn’t enjoyed much success over the years, you’d seem to be an attractive candidate for a GM position. If an opportunity came forward, would you be interested in that? 

I don’t know exactly what the future holds. For me, right now, this is what I am focused on. To see the great momentum over the last couple of months has been just so amazing. And I think there is quite a lot that we can do here. We’ve encouraged people to just sort of absorb the moment of where we are right now, and to understand that they are very much a part of history. They should try and have this founder’s mindset, that this is something to build. This is not something that we take lightly, nor should we take it lightly. I have never been consumed with looking for the next step. I’m not at the beginning of my career, and so it’s really about doing something with a purpose and making sure that, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I leave it in a better place. I think I did that with the Marlins for sure. And I think I will do that here as well.

Is there a lesson you learned from being GM of the Marlins that you can apply to being the commissioner of the AUSL?

It’s not just lessons with the Marlins. There are lessons from all of my previous endeavors. One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned is that you have to take people along with you on your journey, and you have to communicate. That means up and down. 

One very practical thing is having seen and experienced the great success that MLB has had on pace of play. I think that’s one thing that sort of drives a lot of my thoughts about how to make the game even more appealing to softball fans. I just talked to the athletes the other day, and I showed them our MLB outcomes due to pace of game and some of the rule changes. A 2023 survey says that 86% of 18- to 34-year-olds indicated they’re more likely to watch MLB games due to the new rule changes. So part of this is education. It’s about showing those very distinct, very eye-opening outcomes, so that they understand why we are doing this. That’s part of the communication aspect.

In closing, how about a prediction? What’s going to be the state of pro softball in the U.S. in five years? 

I think it’s going to be healthy. It’s going to take us some time. We have to ride this nice wave that we’ve gotten here. It’s going to be eye-opening for potential fans and potential sponsors. It’s going to be very similar to the entire women’s sports movement. We’re getting metrics on our social platforms and MLB’s platforms. People are understanding the power of this. The merging of the two fan bases, it’s going to be organization-changing for us. That then leads to fans in the stands. Huge fan engagement. Great family experiences at the games. I think viewership is going to go up quite a bit. And I think we will have even more people knocking on our doors, wanting investment opportunities, whether it’s at the franchise level or at the league level. We’re going to be very intentional and very concerted in our effort to connect with the college market, to draw those college fans, help them see that there is this elite talent that is coming over and that they can follow in the pro landscape. And then we jump right towards the Olympics, and then use that as another tremendous springboard for ourselves. So I think the future is really, really bright.

When Algerian boxer Imane Khelif competed in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, she wasn’t just fighting her opponents in the ring, she was also fighting persistent accusations that she wasn’t supposed to be there at all. 

Amid the controversy sparked by critics accusing her of being a man, Khelif ultimately took home the gold medal in the women’s welterweight category.

Khelif wasn’t the only boxer to face accusations of competing with the wrong group: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who ultimately won gold in the women’s featherweight category, also had her gender questioned by figures including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

The International Boxing Association, which had been suspended from overseeing the sport due to concerns about governance and integrity, only made matters more complicated by holding a “chaotic” press conference mid-tournament that left onlookers with more questions than answers—and wondering if boxing would even be a part of future Olympics, which will be hosted by Los Angeles in 2028.

Since then, however, World Boxing, a new governing body formed in response to the concerns surrounding the IBA, was provisionally approved to oversee the sport’s inclusion in the Olympics. And among its first priorities, World Boxing cofounder and president Boris van der Vorst said earlier this year, would be to come up with a policy to settle the highly contentious matter of gender eligibility.

Already, it’s apologizing.

After a May 30 announcement of mandatory sex testing for any boxer who wishes to compete officially in any of the matches it organizes, World Boxing issued a follow-up statement to apologize for naming Khelif, acknowledging that “greater effort should have been made to avoid linking the policy to any individual.”

The initial announcement, outlining a new “Sex, Age and Weight” policy designed “to ensure the safety of all participants and deliver a competitive level playing field for men and women,” said that Khelif would be barred from competing in the female category of the Eindhoven Box Cup, which runs from June 5 to June 10, as well as any other World Boxing event until she undergoes mandatory sex testing.

The wider policy is stated to begin July 1, but World Boxing said that it has the authority to make any athlete whose sex certification is “challenged” by the athlete’s federation or World Boxing “ineligible to compete until the dispute is resolved.”

The announcement said its decision to ban Khelif, who hasn’t officially competed in the ring since Paris, from fighting until she undergoes testing “reflects concerns over the safety and wellbeing of all boxers, including Imane Khelif, and aims to protect the mental and physical health of all participants in light of some of the reactions that have been expressed in relation to the boxer’s potential participation.” It added that the decision “is not deemed to in any way pre-judge the outcome of any testing.”

Here’s what to know.

How World Boxing plans to test athletes’ sex

Under its new policy, all athletes over the age of 18 who wish to compete in a World Boxing event will need to undergo a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) genetic test to assess their eligibility. The test, according to World Boxing, can be conducted via nasal or mouth swab, saliva, or blood.

A PCR test can be used to determine one’s sex—specifically, the presence of Y chromosome genetic material. The Y chromosome is generally present in those assigned male at birth and generally absent in those assigned female, though intersex people can have a mixture of X and Y sex chromosomes that do not fall under the XY or XX binary, sometimes referred to as a difference of sexual development (DSD).

An athlete will be deemed eligible for the male category based on the presence of Y chromosome genetic material or a DSD in which male androgenization—defined by the American Psychological Association as “the masculinizing effect of androgens, especially testosterone, on body tissues and organs.” If only a pair of XX chromosomes are found, or a DSD in which androgenization does not occur, the athlete will be considered eligible to compete in the female category.

National federations will be responsible for testing and confirming the sex of their athletes, and failure to provide certification of the PCR test or provision of a false certification will result in ineligibility and potential sanctions.

“Support will be offered to any boxers that provide an adverse test result,” the policy announcement adds, noting that it will also include an appeals process. For an athlete who wants to compete in the female category but is found to have Y chromosome genetic material or a disqualifying DSD, “the initial screenings will be referred to independent clinical specialists for genetic screening, hormonal profiles, anatomical examination or other valuation of endocrine profiles by medical specialists.” 

While supporters of greater sex-eligibility testing in sports often cite safety as a concern, especially in contact sports like boxing—males tend to have greater muscle mass and arm length than females—some medical experts have argued that attempting to regulate sports based on biological tests for sex differences, which are the basis for most but not all people’s identified gender, can be problematic and contribute to stigma and discrimination.

What to know about Imane Khelif

Van der Vorst contacted the Algerian Boxing Federation directly to apologize for naming Khelif in the policy announcement, which has only put further scrutiny on the Algerian boxer, who has identified and competed as a woman her whole life.

“I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman and I competed as a woman,” Khelif said in Paris.

“I am writing to you all personally to offer a formal and sincere apology for this and acknowledge that her privacy should have been protected,” Vorst wrote in a letter seen by the Associated Press, adding that by “reaching out to you personally we show our true respect to you and your athletes.”

As of June 5, Khelif has not yet publicly commented on World Boxing’s new policy or apology—though the 26-year-old UNICEF ambassador is now facing a fresh wave of attacks, including calls to strip her of her Olympic gold medal.

On June 1, 3 Wire Sports—an independent outlet by longtime Olympics reporter Alan Abrahamson—reported the purported results for Khelif of two chromosome tests from 2022 and 2023. 

U.K. newspaper the Telegraph summarized the report with the headline: “Leaked medical report ‘proves Imane Khelif is biological male’”—which quickly circulated on social media among conservatives who had criticized Khelif’s eligibility during the Olympics.

According to the 3 Wire Sports report, Khelif’s DNA showed XY markers with “male” karyotype. TIME could not independently verify the test results.

English broadcaster Piers Morgan posted on X: “The biology-denying woke brigade abused and shamed me for saying it was outrageous and dangerous for Khelif to be beating up women at the Olympics. I’m ready for their apology, but won’t hold my breath.”

American activist Riley Gaines, who campaigns against transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, posted: “To all the people that insisted Imane Khelif was a woman because his passport said so, You were wrong. We were right. Sincerely, People with functioning eyes and a shred of honesty.”

During the Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee—which oversaw the sport in the absence of a boxing governing body—slammed suggestions of Khelif being male as disinformation. IOC representatives said that Khelif had met the committee’s eligibility criteria and that tests the discredited IBA claimed to have that showed otherwise were “flawed” and “not legitimate” and part of a politically motivated “cultural war.”

In August, Khelif filed a criminal cyberbullying complaint in France against her detractors, while in February the IBA said it was taking legal action in Switzerland, France, and the U.S. against the IOC for allowing Khelif and Yu-ting to compete.

Khelif responded at the time that the accusations of her ineligibility were “false and offensive.” She said that her “name and image have been used, unauthorized, to further personal and political agendas through the spreading and dissemination of baseless lies and misinformation,” adding: “I am not going anywhere. I will fight in the ring, I will fight in the courts, and I will fight in the public eye until the truth is undeniable.”