2021 Sports Picture Story
First Place: Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Photo-Story about the four-year-old motocross rider Luca Albrecht who has been riding a motorcycle since he was two years old. He lives with his parents Julia Rauch and Kevin Albrecht in Viernau, in southern Thuringia in Germany. The family's father, grandpa, uncle and cousins also ride motorcycles themselves. Luca trains almost every day with his Husqvarna TC50 in the Viernau Saugraben on the Motocross track run by Endurofreunde Haselgrund e.V. In August this year, Luca drove his first official race and, in 5th place, also got his first trophy. In this photo: Luca in action during a training session.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Mother Julia Rauch puts a cap on her son Luca while Fahter Kevin Albrecht prepares the motorcycle for the training session.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luca jump in his bed with his first ever trophy wich he had won after a 5th place in his first offical race in last August.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luca in action during a training session. Three times 10 minutes are on the schedule this day.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luca in the kitchen with a toy motorcycle.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
A cardboard figure on the shelf in his children's room shows Ken Roczen, the youngest motocross world champion also from Thuringia and today's superstar of the scene.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
A tape with the label "Start your Engine" hangs on the front door key when Luca storms out of the house.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Mother and father watch four-year-old Luca fly through the air after jumping.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
In the garage, Luca has to stretch to get to the handlebars of his father's motorcycle.o the handlebars of his father's motorcycle.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Father Kevin helps Luca get on his motorcycle. Small additionally attached blocks compensate some missing centimeters.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luca full concentrated during the training session.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
First Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
After a training session Luca jumps from the podium in the arms of his father Kevin.
Sascha Fromm / Thüringer Allgemeine
Second Place: Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Twenty years after the attacks of Sept. 11, and just days after the Taliban took control of Kabul, these athletes here are a small group of American combat veterans competing in the Tokyo Paralympics -- a corps of elite athletes who have triumphed over catastrophic injuries they suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are a disparate group. Some are relentlessly optimistic. Others spent years wrestling emotional demons. Some insist they emerged from their personal battlefields without emotional scarring. Others insist thats impossible. Their stories are tangles of adversity and redemption, loss and achievement. What unites them is a fierce competitiveness and an ability to push past disabilities that can look insurmountable to an outsider. And, at times, a quiet anger at people who dismiss them. Brad Snyder prepares tea for his wife in their kitchen decorated with a flag handcrafted by Brooklyn firefighters using recycled firehose, in Princeton, N.J., on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021. Losing his sight, he says, seems to matter more to other people.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luis Puertas' suitcases and a pair of prosthetic blades sit by his door in Orlando, Fla., on Monday, Aug. 9, 2021, as he prepares to travel to the Tokyo Paralympics Games.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Melissa Stockwell plays with her children, Dallas and Millie, in their home in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021. Ive always been an optimistic person, she says. Probably annoyingly optimistic to lots of people.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Brad Snyder works out on his stationary bicycle during daily training in his garage in Princeton, N.J., on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021. A top swimmer at the U.S. Naval Academy, Snyder won his first two Paralympic gold medals in London barely a year after losing his sight. He won three more in Rio De Janeiro in 2016, then switched to the triathlon.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Freddie De Los Santos rides his bicycle as part of his daily training in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2021. A fierce cyclist, he was introduced to the sport by physical therapists at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the hospital outside of Washington where tens of thousands of injured American soldiers were treated after Sept. 11.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Freddie De Los Santos prepares his coffee ahead of a training session at his house in Hopewell Junction, NY., Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2021.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luis Puertas fixes his prosthetic blades on his residual limbs during one of his daily training sessions in a sports complex in Orlando, Fla., on Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. Puertas, 34, lost both his legs in September 2006 as he patrolled a crowded Baghdad neighborhood. His legs were severed when a massive IED blasted through his armored vehicle.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Melissa Stockwell, pauses during her swimming at a sport complex during a daily training in Colorado Springs, Colo. on Friday Aug. 6, 2021.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Luis Puertas competes in the Men's 200m T-61 final, at Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Freddie De Los Santos, is comforted by Tom Davis, left, after losing in the Men's H5 Road Race at the Fuji International Speedway at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. De Los Santos says combat taught him to thrive on pain, making him a relentless competitor. You enjoy the pain, he said. Sometimes, that pain is your best enemy. When Im racing and I start to feel the pain, I say How are you doing?
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Melissa Stockwell competes in the Women's Triathlon PTS2 at Odaiba Marine Park in the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Second Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Brad Snyder bites his gold medal after wining the Men's Triathlon PTV1 in the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, on Friday, Aug. 27, 2021.
Emilio Morenatti / Associated Press
Third Place: Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter @josudelacalzada (a student of the Salamanca Bullfighting School) getting dressed in the town hall of Miranda del Castaar before the afternoon bullfight. Miranda de Castaar (Salamanca). September 9, 2021.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
Most bullfighters set up "La Capilla -The chapel" before going out to fight. "The chapel" consists of a series of personal and family memorabilia, commonly accompanied by photos and religious gadgets.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Josu de la Calzada (a student of the Salamanca Bullfighting School) getting dressed in the town hall of Miranda del Castaar before the afternoon bullfight. Miranda del Castaar (Salamanca). September 9, 2021.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Francisco Montero before going out to fight in the Madrid town of Villa del Prado. September 10, 2021.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Marco Polope (from the bullfighting school of Valencia), preparing to go out to fight in the Final of the I Contest "Valencian Bullfighting Federation" in Sueca (Valencia)
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
A Spanish bullfighter preparing to go out to fight in the Villa del Prado Bullring (Madrid)
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Simon Andreu (from the bullfighting school of Valencia) before bullfighting in the Bocairent bullring (Valencia). The Bocairent bullring was the scene of the two practical classes organized this weekend by the bullfighting school of Valencia in collaboration with the local bullfighting clubs: the Pea Taurina Espl and the Bocairent Bullfighting Cultural Association.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
A Spanish bullfighter (from the bullfighting school of Valencia), before going to bullfight in The Bocairent bullring, that was the scene of the two practical classes organized this weekend by the bullfighting school of Valencia in collaboration with the local bullfighting clubs: the Pea Taurina Espl and the Bocairent Bullfighting Cultural Association.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Josu de la Calzada (a student of the Salamanca Bullfighting School) in Miranda del Castaar (Salamanca). September 9, 2021
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Francisco Montero fighting in Miranda del Castaar, one afternoon in which he managed to cut off 3 ears and a tail and pardon one of the bulls. Miranda de Castaar (Salamanca). September 9, 2021.
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Peruvian bullfighter Julio Alguiar (from the bullfighting school of Malaga), in the Bocairent bullring, in Valencia (Spain).
Jordi Cohen
Third Place - 2021 Sports Picture Story
The Spanish bullfighter Jos Cabrera waits for the bullfighter's suit to dry on a small blacn in his hostel, the day after fighting in Villa del Prado (Madrid). September 11, 2021.
Jordi Cohen