Latest news with #DavidAdams
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
High school track star disqualified over controversial celebration reveals she is considering legal action
Clara Adams, the high school athlete disqualified for celebrating her 400m victory by spraying her shoes with a fire extinguisher, is considering drastic action after she was stripped of her gold medal. Adams, 16, copied the celebration first made famous by the American former 100m world record holder Maurice Greene when she crossed the line in first place at the California state high school track and field championships, which were held on May 30 and 31. But the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) decided that the celebration was unsportsmanlike and stripped Adams of her championship. Now, Adams, who was left devastated by the incident, and her father, David, are contemplating taking legal action unless the CIF reinstates her title. 'CIF's rules and regulations are byzantine and outdated,' their attorney Adante Pointer told PEOPLE. 'Nevertheless, we were hopeful they would do the right thing without us having to bring this issue into a court of law as it is clear they did not follow their own rules and regulations which irreparably harmed a young budding track star by robbing her of the state title without proper justification or cause.' 'CIF did not follow their own rules which led to Clara being denied a crowning achievement as the state of California 400-meter champion,' he added. 'This may cost her scholarships, NIL deals and other opportunities now and into the future. Not to mention the emotional distress associated with the track meet officials physically grabbing and yelling at her. She can never relive that moment.' has reached out to the CIF for comment. Adams' father, who also acts as her coach, had handed her the fire extinguisher before racing onto the field when he saw there was an incident unfolding. He accepted that he broke rules by climbing over rails to get to his daughter, but insisted he felt outraged when he saw an official grab Clara by the arm. Adams was disqualified from the meet as a whole by officials for her celebrations - denying her the chance to race in a 200-meter event later. Adams, a sophomore from North Salinas High School, claimed the CIF officials 'overreacted by grabbing me and yelling in my face.' 'As a dad, I still do not understand why the CIF officials berated my daughter, stripped her of her title, banned her from competing in the next race and ignored me when I attempted to get an explanation of what was going on,' her dad David added to PEOPLE 'As a father I was angry about how they physically grabbed and yelled at her. I am still at a loss as to why they treated her and that way. She's a kid and they treated her like an adult and gave her the maximum punishment without any warning or explanation.' The celebration was reminiscent of Greene, a four-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion, who famously extinguished his own cleats after he won the 100-meter dash during the 2004 Home Depot Invitational. Adams claimed she and her dad didn't settle on the celebration until they arrived in Fresno for the meet and saw the old video of Greene. Adams, who said she was the 'underdog' heading into the event, and David insisted that they carried out the celebration away from her fellow competitors. Earlier this month, Greene himself weighed in on the controversy, claiming disqualification should be overturned if the celebration was performed away from her competitors. 'When I heard, cause it happened, and then people just started calling me 'This girl who just ran the 400 did your celebration' I was like huh? What?' the ex-athlete told KSBW-TV on Monday. 'If it was away from everyone and not interfering with anyone, I would say reinstate her.'
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
California high school sprinter stripped of state title due to 'unsportsmanlike' fire-extinguisher celebration
A California high-school sprinter was stripped of the state title after an "unsportsmanlike" celebration with a fire extinguisher, according to the Los Angeles Times. Clara Adams, a 16-year-old sophomore at North Salinas High, finished the 400-meter finals .28 seconds before her closest competitor, but was disqualified by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) due to her celebration. Following the win, Adams obtained a "small fire extinguisher" from her father in the stands. Adams then sprayed her cleats, implying they were on fire due to her blazing speed. The CIF disqualified Adams from both the 400-meter finals and the 200-meter finals due to that celebration, which they deemed "unsportsmanlike." Advertisement Adams told the Los Angeles Times she was "robbed," saying she was just having fun with the celebration. "I was having fun,' Adams said, noting her win in the 400 marked her first state title. 'I'd never won something like that before, and they took it away from me. I didn't do anything wrong.' She added: 'I worked really hard for it and they took it from me, and I don't know what to do.' David Adams, Clara's father, said the CIF ruled "unsporting conduct" against his daughter. David claimed officials were "really nasty" to Clara. Unsporting conduct can include "disrespectfully addressing an official, any flagrant behavior, intentional contact, taunting, criticizing or using profanity directed toward someone," per the National Federation of State High School Associations. David said that rule was cited as a "gray area" that the CIF used to justify the decision. David said the celebration was a tribute to Maurice Greene, a former U.S. sprinter who used the same celebration at the Home Depot Invitational in 2004. Broadcasters laughed at Greene's celebration, which took place in the middle of the track. Advertisement David argued Clara's antics didn't qualify as unsportsmanlike because she performed her celebration away from the track, per the Los Angeles Times. "Looking at the film, Clara is nowhere near any opponent,' he said. 'She's off the track, on the grass. Her opponents are long gone off the track already, so she wasn't in their face. It was a father-daughter moment. ... She did it off the track because she didn't want to seem disrespectful toward nobody. And they still found a reason to take her title away. They didn't give her a warning or anything.' The CIF and North Salinas High track and field head coach Alan Green did not respond to the Los Angeles Times when reached for comment. David Adams threatened to take legal action against the CIF if the organization won't return his calls. Following Clara's disqualification, St. Mary's Academy in Inglewood sprinter Madison Mosby was awarded the win in the 400-meter finals.
New York Post
05-06-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Dad of high school track star disqualified over celebration believes decision came with racial motivations
Clara Adams and her father, David, continued to speak out after the teen sprinter had been disqualified from the California state championships over an 'unsportsmanlike' celebration. David Adams believes the penalty is motivated, in part, by race. Clara Adams, 16, was competing in the CIF State Championships when she won the 400-meter dash, leading the North Salinas High School sophomore to celebrate by using a fire extinguisher on her running spikes, in homage to famed sprinter Maurice Greene. Advertisement 3 David Adams, handed his daughter Clara a fire extinguisher, and away from her competitors, she sprayed on her shoes as if they were on fire. Oceanside Dolphins Track Club/YouTube CIF officials almost immediately approached her and eventually stripped her of her state title and disqualified her from her other events. Since then, the story has garnered national attention, and Adams' father has alleged that there is a racial component to the situation, explaining during an appearance on 'The Will Cain Show' on Fox News that the belief stems from a 'history in our country.' Advertisement 'I say that because you look at the governing body, you look at the officials that are on the grass, on the grass area,' David Adams said. 'I know for a fact, with the history in our country when it comes to celebrations, when a white girl celebrates or a white boy celebrates, it's called, he's passionate. He's good for the sport. We need this for the sport. 3 Clara Adams was disqualified from the race. Oceanside Dolphins Track Club/YouTube 'But when a black girl or a black boy or a brown girl or a black boy, they celebrate, it's deemed as unprofessional, unsportsmanlike. It's ghetto. So why is it OK for one to celebrate, not the other? We have seen that before. It's nothing new. I'm not making this up.' Cain did acknowledge that 'there is some merit to what you're saying' in response to David Adams' explanation. Advertisement Clara Adams has said she was 'set into shock' when she was disqualified from the state championship. 'It was just really disappointing, because they just took my moment away from me that quick,' she told Cain. 'You know, you think about, like, how long I have taken, me and my dad, to work for this moment. And then just for them to take it in minutes, it just — it's unbelievable.' 3 Clara Adams, the high school track star stripped of her Calfornia state title over celebration paying homage to Olympic gold medalist, sits with her father David. ksbw Advertisement The CIF has not publicly commented on the controversy surrounding Adams. Adams does have support from one track star, with Green telling local outlet, KSBW, that if the celebration 'was away from everyone and not interfering with anyone, I would say reinstate her.'
Spectator
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Wake up, babe, new Dot Wordsworth just dropped
On X, that old-fashioned site still used by people like me, someone called Henri tweeted: 'babe wake up Waste Land new hard as hell cover just dropped'. Appended was a Penguin Classics cover illustrated with an apocalyptic picture which I think was a work from 2010 called The Harrowing of Hell, by David Adams. It turned out to have been put together with the help of an online device called Penguin Classics Cover Generator, which allows you to use your chosen picture to design a paperback. The site has no connection with Penguin. But 'Wake up, babe, new [something] just dropped' is a catchphrase or meme that has been around since 2020. Drop, a verb favoured by the trendy to mean 'arrive' or 'be published or released' has been used since the 1980s for records, but is still thought to be hip. Drop is having a creative time at the moment. People who use X are worried about drop shipping. Handy gadgets are advertised for sale, but the advertiser doesn't stock the dog-toy, or whatever the thing is. He merely gets a supplier (perhaps in China) to deliver it to the buyer and makes money from his mark-up as middle-man. Another thing that drops is the other shoe, for which we wait. 'Waiting for the other shoe to drop' must date from the advent of flat-living, and expresses the suspense with which downstairs neighbours await the next percussion after the warning shot, as the man upstairs prepares for bed. There is no recognised begetter of the phrase. It became popular between the wars, when Pont's cartoon 'Life in the flat above' showed the family upstairs jumping and thumping, with the daughter pulling a little wagon unstably piled with pots and pans and even the dog wearing boots. The indefatigably reliable Michael Quinion in his World Wide Words blog traced an American quotation from 1921: 'If nine out of ten of us hadn't heard that 'drop that other shoe' chestnut and molded our lives accordingly for the sake of the neighbor below us, what would be the end of us?' Today, I think we've seen what.
Fox News
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Track athlete who lost medal for celebration laments her punishment while trans athlete took girls' titles
California girls' track and field star Clara Adams and her father called out the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for stripping her of her state title over a celebration while allowing trans athlete AB Hernandez to win two gold medals at the state championship last weekend. Adams was stripped of her title and disqualified for a celebration that involved her spraying a fire extinguisher on her shoes after winning the girls' 400m. Meanwhile, Hernandez took first place in high jump and triple jump and second place in long jump, despite President Donald Trump ordering the state to follow his Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports executive order prior to the event. During an interview on Fox News' "The Will Cain Show" on Wednesday, Adams addressed the controversial comparison between the two athletes' situations. "It just doesn't add up to me in my head," Adams said, adding that she now also has to potentially worry about a biological male competing against her in the future. "It's just not fair, and then comparing the situation, it's just like, 'So, what I did was just so not OK and inappropriate that I had to get DQ'd, but this, what is going on over here in the jumps, is appropriate and OK." Adams' father, David Adams, expressed his stance on the comparison during the interview as well. "It's being celebrated," he said of Hernandez's victory, saying his family is "lost" on the decision. "I watched AB Hernandez jump. AB Hernandez is talented. She can jump against those girls, she can jump very well. I watched her jump, I watched myself, I saw it, and they celebrated AB Hernandez on the podium, and Clara was disqualified for having a celebration, so that's where we're kind of lost. Our families are lost on that, we're lost on that right there, we're very lost on that. "I'm confused now. Do I have to worry about AB Hernandez jumping into the 400m next year?" David Adams also doubled-down on the belief that the decision to revoke his daughter's title was racially motivated. "I know for a fact that the history of our country when it comes to celebrations, when a White girl celebrates or a White boy celebrates, it's called, 'He's passionate. It's good for the sport. We need this for the sport.' But when a Black girl or Black boy or Brown girl or Brown boy, they celebrate, it's deemed as unprofessional, unsportsmanlike, it's ghetto," he said. "So why is it OK for one to celebrate but not the other?" Trump sent a warning to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state last Tuesday, threatening to cut federal funding to the state if a trans athlete competed in the girls' track and field championship. The CIF responded by amending its rules to accommodate female athletes who finished behind a trans athlete in the three events Hernandez competed in, thus granting them qualification and podium finishes they would have earned had a biologically male athlete not competed in those events. This resulted in Hernandez having to share podium spots with the female athletes who finished one spot behind Hernandez after the finals on Saturday. A bipartisan survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found the majority of California residents oppose biological male trans athletes competing in women's sports. That figure included more than 70% of the state's school parents. "Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth," the poll stated. "Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement." Meanwhile, Newsom said he believed trans athletes competing in girls' sports was "deeply unfair" during an episode of his podcast in March. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
