The center of our tragedy are the Fremantle Dockers, one of only three clubs in the 18-team AFL to have never won a Grand Final. They’re located in Perth, all the way on the far edge of Western Australia, about as isolated as any city on earth. There’s another, more popular team in Perth, the West Coast Eagles; everybody else in the league is about 1,500 miles away across the Outback.

Fremantle is the part of Perth that includes the city’s harbor on the Indian Ocean, hence the official team name “Dockers,” and the informal nickname “Wharfies.” In 2009, team captain Matthew Pavlich gave his team a pump-up speech while mic’d ending with “put on your Superman capes, it’s Wharfie time.”

Starting in 2023, the Dockers began a “Wharfie Time” ritual in late-game situations when they wanted to rile up the crowd. They’d play the bells from AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” — finally returning home to Australia, after America borrowed it for The Undertaker and Trevor Hoffman — and flash the phrase WHARFIE TIME on the Jumbotron.

This coincided with the Dockers achieving league relevance for the first time in a while. In 2025, they made the postseason after missing out in eight of the previous nine seasons. This year, the Dockers had the best season in club history, winning 19 of 23 games and finishing atop the AFL’s regular season ladder.

In the semifinal against Geelong, they busted out Wharfie Time with a minute left. This is what it’s supposed to like:

The Dockers went to the Grand Final for just the second time in club history. Despite the fact that the Grand Final is played at a neutral venue — the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the same stadium where the Rams and 49ers played a few weeks ago — Wharfie Time has become such a phenomenon that the AFL agreed to let the Dockers press the Wharfie Time button once during the game.

That time came after Freo took an 89-72 lead with 4:18 remaining. The scene after the bells rang is one of the greatest crowd pops you’ll ever see.

The announcers on Fox Footy seemed to understand the iconic nature of the moment. “What about the theater! … Soak that in, wherever you’re watching around the world … welcome to our beautiful little game of AFL footy!”

Some AFL fans saw Wharfie Time as a bit of annoying gimmickry. But moments like this are part of what makes sports great. These out-of-nowhere champions had come a continent away, and they were writing their club’s new tradition in bells and roars.

And then: Disaster.

Brisbane scored four consecutive goals — 24 points — to win the Grand Final, 96-89. The full collapse, from the moment Fremantle went up 17 to the moment they lost, is captured in this video. It’s like watching somebody play a sports video game on Legendary Hall of Fame God-Tier mode. Every 50-50 ball just happened to bounce towards Brisbane. Every Brisbane kick splits the uprights for six.

Allow me to break this down with my limited understanding of Australian Rules football.

Many have questioned the timing of Wharfie Time, which is usually deployed when the game is close, or when the Dockers are losing. The 17-point margin at the time of Wharfie Time was the largest lead the Dockers had ever had at Wharfie Time.

This has led to discussion about who actually pressed the Wharfie Time button. According to 7 News, “the decision was made by a Dockers staffer working within broad parameters set by the club, rather than being directly approved by (team CEO Simon) Garlick or any other senior member of staff.”

Brisbane’s players say Wharfie Time actually had the reverse effect, getting them hyped up just as it seemed the Dockers were pulling away. Brisbane’s coach, Chris Fagan, apparently played the Wharfie Time music for his players the day before the Grand Final, and told them to use Wharfie Time as their own motivational moment. “We talked about Wharfie Time and making that our energy,” co-captain Josh Dunkley said. “When Wharfie Time came on we all looked at each other, we connected, we grew a leg and got it done.”

I read this entire compilation of quotes from Australian people about Wharfie Time. “That bloody Wharfie Time ... I don’t think they can ever play it again,” said former West Coast coach Adam Simpson. “Every Brisbane player has spoken immediately post game about using Wharfie Time to their advantage. Jeez. The greatest backfire in AFL history,” said Channel 9’s Nic Negrepontis.

“Wharfie Time” has quickly become a national symbol for premature celebrations. The Australian penned a column titled “Wharfie Time bell is tolling for [Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese’s arrogant team … Voters will quickly turn on a government that continues to claim victories where none exist.”; Australian satirical website The Shovel wrote “US Expected to Lose Iran War After Trump Activates Wharfie Time in Hormuz Strait.”

Fremantle insists they’ll continue doing Wharfie Time, but I can’t imagine how. Pavlov’s dogs started to think food was coming when they heard a bell; Fremantle’s fans and players will hear those noises and remember the absolute worst thing ever to happen to their club.

Stories like this are why I write this newsletter. Because somewhere on the other side of the earth, something this dramatic, beautiful, and stupid is happening in a sport I barely understand. It’s comforting, somehow, to see people so far away being torn apart by the same stupid stuff as us. The game and the rules and the terminology might be different, but I see myself in those distraught Australians who will spend the rest of their life wondering why their team played its in-stadium hype-up song at the worst possible time.

The World Championships road race is an interesting event. It’s contested between national teams, composed of riders who don’t work together much during the season when they’re racing for their pro teams. And radios aren’t allowed in the race, making coordination between these unfamiliar teammates even harder.

There’s also less incentive for teamwork. Corporate sponsors pay riders handsomely to burn themselves out in service of others. Other than a bit of national pride, there’s not a lot motivating someone to grind themselves into dust so that another guy can get a World Championship medal.

In the last two World Championships, Tadej Pogačar made the races less awkward for everyone by winning mostly by himself, launching attacks with more than 100 kilometers to go. But this year, Pogačar was out after his bad crash at the Vuelta a España. Somebody else would have to win.

Team USA felt it had a depth advantage. No, none of its riders had won a stage in this year’s Grand Tours … but it had three riders in McNulty, Matteo Jorgenson, and Quinn Simmons who could win on their best days. "We made a plan last night, we set our egos aside a little bit and we decided OK, we just want an American to win this race," Jorgenson told Eurosport.

That plan unfolded perfectly. All three American riders got into the lead pack of 12 at the end of the race. No other country even had two riders in the mix. Three Americans faced solo cyclists from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Of that trio, McNulty was not the most obvious candidate to make the winning move. He’d won a couple of stage races, like the Tour de Pologne and Tour de Luxembourg, but both Jorgenson and Simmons have had impressive results, too. (Side note: How the heck do they fit a whole bike race in Luxembourg? Do they just go around in circles?) McNulty had, however, won a race on this very course: The 2025 Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal.

McNulty made his move with 32 kilometers remaining, heading out ahead of the front group on his own. The move put his competitors in a bind: Sure, they could try to chase down McNulty, but they’d risk bringing Jorgenson and Simmons with them on their wheels, two riders who would just sit on and give zero help until they had a chance to attack their exhausted opponent at the finish line. "It does become like this game of, 'Okay, you're gonna catch me, but you're gonna be completely fucked,'” U.S. team director Mike Creed told Escape Collective.

McNulty held on for the win, and will get to race for the next year in the rainbow jersey as the reigning World Champion. (After you lose the title, you get to wear little rainbows on your sleeves and collar.)

However, McNulty knows his World Championship likely won’t change his day job of supporting Pogačar and Del Toro. “I know my role pretty well,” he said.

The women’s race was probably better than the men’s. (Sorry it got second billing here, I had to hype up the American guy.) Remember the bitter rivalry between Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney that erupted during this year’s Tour de France?

The World Championship once again came down to Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney. They were together for the final 10 kilometers or so before Vollering beat Niewiadoma-Phinney to the line in a sprint:

I really enjoyed Michael Baumann’s writeup of Worlds and breakdown of the Demi/Kasia rivalry:

We might see more American wins in the future. Ashlin Barry, the son of 2004 Olympic silver medalist Dede Barry, took the gold in the U23 road race on his 19th birthday — the first time an American has ever won the U23 race. Maybe Barry will win the senior title one day … or if not, maybe he’ll help his fellow countryman win just like Jorgenson and Simmons helped McNulty.

Assefa was on pace to take back the world record set by Ruth Chepng'etich, who ran 2:09:56 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon. Assefa covered the first 40 km in 2:03:00, putting her on track to finish in the 2:09 range.

A little bit of mandatory discussion about world record technicalities: Assefa holds the world record in women’s only events at 2:15:40, which she set at this year’s London Marathon. However, she’d like to also hold the record for mixed races. The difference is that when men are on the course, the women runners who are leading their race can draft off them.

The mixed nature of the event actually made it hard to figure out exactly when and where Assefa got hurt. The broadcast was covering the men’s race before it cut back to Assefa, who was suddenly struggling.

A videographer filming Assefa during the race appeared to capture the moment Assefa’s Achilles popped. She hops on one leg for a moment before continuing to jog with a grimace. It’s remarkable how little she was affected by the largest tendon in the human body snapping.

Assefa skipped the podium ceremony and was flown directly to a hospital near Munich for surgery. Hopefully somebody still brought her the gigantic beer that winners are traditionally given after winning the race.

Assefa’s Achilles has been described as “totally destroyed.” It likely would be in better shape if she had quit the race early. “The last 500 meters maybe, she ran without the tendon, only with the heel,” said her representative, Gianni Demadonna. “So that was a disaster because maybe [if] she had stopped, [it] was not so bad, but she ran two kilometers with the problem."

Despite all that, Assefa won the race by a massive margin. She finished nearly six minutes ahead of fellow Ethiopian, Bedatu Hirpa.

Assefa will push to get back for the London Marathon in April, but that seems like an awfully quick turnaround considering how much training is required to compete in marathons.

Here’s hoping Assefa can eventually break the record. The current record-holder, Chepng'etich, is serving a suspension for doping (the record was set slightly before the timeframe of her violation.) And Assefa clearly has phenomenal determination.