New York Yankees right-hander Luis Severino again is dealing with what is being described as a low-grade right lat strain and will likely start the season on the injured list, manager Aaron Boone told reporters Saturday.

Severino was scratched from his final spring training start and will miss at least his first scheduled regular-season start, Boone said.

It is the latest hit to the Yankees' starting rotation, with Carlos Rodon (forearm strain) and Frankie Montas (shoulder surgery) also beginning the season on the injured list.

Boone said Severino, 29, won't throw for at least five days. He last pitched in a Grapefruit League game Tuesday, striking out nine while giving up two runs over four innings. He gave up six home runs this spring and had a 9.00 ERA.

Severino missed more than two months last season with the same injury, which was also initially described as a low-grade strain at the time. The Yankees exercised a $15 million option for this season after Severino went 7-3 with a 3.18 ERA in 19 starts in 2022.

Severino was scheduled to start the second game of the season, and Clarke Schmidt will move into that spot. As for replacing Severino in the rotation, Boone said Jhony Brito is among the options to fill in as a fifth starter.

Severino, a two-time All-Star, missed most of the 2019 and 2021 seasons and all of 2020 because of shoulder and elbow injuries, throwing just 18 combined innings over that span.

The Olympic champion’s ability to throw the javelin has propelled him to superstardom in his home country and helped a generation of Indian athletes to believe

The doors of the arrivals hall opened and life changed forever for Neeraj Chopra. When he walked out into New Delhi airport, Olympic gold medal in hand, he could see the thousands of well-wishers waiting outside the terminal to acclaim their new national hero. It didn’t take long for him to be engulfed.

“The point when I started doing the javelin was a life-changing moment in itself,” he tells AW through an interpreter. “But when I saw the crowds at the airport that day, I thought: ‘I’ve done something’. People started recognising me, wanted to be with me, wanted autographs with me. It has given me the motivation to keep trying to get better and to achieve more.”

He has set himself a high bar. That landmark Tokyo victory in 2021 made Chopra India’s first ever Olympic track and field medallist of any sort, let alone champion. August 7, the date when his throw of 87.58m wrote his name into the annals of history, is now celebrated as National Javelin Day in his home country. Few sportspeople have managed to make such an impression on the consciousness of a nation where cricketers tend to dominate the agenda.

Chopra’s Instagram following of 6.2 million people might still pale in comparison to the numbers commanded by great batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, but it’s still the kind of attention which the majority of track and field athletes could only dream of – and that the sport needs.

There is a sense of momentum building in India. The country won eight athletics medals at last summer’s Commonwealth Games, adding to Chopra’s world silver from Oregon. Each one of those medallists cited his breakthrough achievements in helping them to believe.

“There has been a lot of change and growth in the sphere of athletics in the country, especially in javelin as a lot of youngsters have taken up the sport, plus a lot of young javelin throwers [including world finalist Rohit Yadav] did very well in the past season,” he says.

“World Athletics also announced recently that India were ranked ninth in the world overall when it comes to men’s field events last year. There is a lot of potential.”

Coming from a country with a population of 1.4 billion people helps, of course, but it’s also important to note that World Athletics’ media monitoring showed the 25-year-old to have been the most written about athlete of 2022, the first time in recent history that Usain Bolt has been overtaken in that particular race.

The endorsements have been plentiful, while the recognition is positive and significant, but it can also be a distraction. That’s why Chopra was to be found spending a substantial chunk of his winter not at his usual training base in Patiala, but at the High Performance Centre in Loughborough.

Thanks to the Indian government funded Target Olympics Podium Scheme (TOPS), he was able to spend two months operating in relative anonymity (there certainly weren’t crowds awaiting his arrival to the UK) and with the space to start laying foundations for another important year ahead.

“I had been to this facility once, last year, and quite liked it,” says the athlete who has also enjoyed long-term support from JSW Sports, a company which helps a number of India’s aspirational sportspeople. “I had a word with my team, and we were all of the opinion that I should train at Loughborough as it offers great facilities. All an athlete needs to focus on is training, which makes it a good option.”

We speak to a Liverpool athlete who left smoking and binge drinking behind to become a masters record-breaker

Kirsty Longley has two young daughters and works full-time as a teacher. Yet she still finds the time and energy to run 60-70 miles per week and such training has led to her topping the UK rankings in the W45 age group last year in the 3000m, one mile, five miles, 10km and half-marathon, plus the parkrun.

Amazingly she did not start running seriously until she was 30, either, but has knocked chunks off her PBs and is still improving aged 46. “I wasn’t that talented,” she says. “I was a little bit overweight. I was binge-drinking and used to smoke in my twenties, so I had to start at rock bottom.”

Apart from a little ballet and dance at school, Longley didn’t do much exercise as a teenager but began working in a gym in her early twenties. It wasn’t until nearly ten years later, however, that running came calling.

A local athletics coach saw her jogging on the gym treadmill and encouraged her to train at Liverpool Pembroke & Sefton AC.

“It was January and freezing and I was running sideways as the wind was taking my breath away,” she remembers. “I thought: ‘This is not for me as it’s cold and horrible’.

“In my first races – a Northern League at Wakefield – I did the 3000m in 12:49 and 1500m in 6:51 and I actually wore headphones and came last in both races. My mum just said: ‘Next time, just beat someone’.

“So the next time I beat just one person in the 1500m. But then someone told me: ‘I’m really sorry but that person you beat was a shot putter’.”

But Longley stuck with it. “It took me 10 years to break 10 minutes for 3km,” she says. “For me it’s been consistency, not getting injured or ill and just grinding it out.”

Having worked as a sales account manager, Longley says she had developed a super-competitive mindset. “I wanted to be No.1 so I’d highlight people who beat me and then I’d go after them,” she explains.

Her first daughter arrived when she was 34 but she returned to running and has never suffered a serious running injury. “I’m 46 but feel like a 20-year-old,” she says. “Running has changed my life.”

So what are her secrets? “Relaxing during sessions and listening to your body is important,” she says. “At the moment I’m in a really good training group where everyone is there to help each other instead of racing each other.

“I’ve always been a very positive person, too. I’ve always been told I’m full of energy and always smiling. I enjoy what I’m doing. I love racing – I’m a race-a-holic. One year I did 75 races. I was going berserk. I love the buzz you get at the end of a race.

“As a mum there are no rest days or lie-ins and I am often found doing yoga in car parks while my girls do their cheerleading and tumbling hobbies.”

Speaking to Longley, it’s clear that she is indeed a bundle of energy and enthusiasm.

She counts Jo Pavey among her friends and says the five-time Olympian has gone out of her way to praise her performances. Her next goal is a marathon debut later this year.

“I’d like to get my half-marathon time down first,” she says. “What else would I be doing? Sitting on the couch watching Coronation Street?”

Training philosophy

Coach Tom Craggs says: “It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with Kirsty for a number of years now. Regarding planning Kirsty’s training we work hard to balance it with the demands of a very busy, high energy life – children, teaching and everything else that surrounds it which can be draining. Further to this there are of course both social and psychological stressors that come along with this time of life but also biophysical considerations to consider related to a high performing masters athlete.

“As such whilst we have a broad long-term direction of travel we would rarely ever plan more than 10-14 days of detailed training at a time and often work in a more iterative way looking at coming days and making decisions based around energy levels, sleep, stress levels, HRV etc. So I would not say we have a default week as such.

“It’s also important to note that Dave Evans has been integral to Kirsty’s development and performance over the last 12-18 months and it would be accurate to describe Kirsty has having two coaches, myself and Dave. While I am leading the communication with Kirsty and setting a training plan, Dave is physically present with her at least once a week in sessions whereas I am based remotely. This gives Dave the ability to provide much more direct feedback and engagement than I can and the training group he has developed works really well for Kirsty in terms of the atmosphere and culture which is very supportive.

READ MORE: How they train series

“The nice thing about this dovetailing is more often than not the sessions Dave is setting at different times in a year fit very closely to what I would plan for Kirsty so we have quite a similar philosophy to training and more broadly, which helps.

“The overriding priority with Kirsty is happiness, enjoyment and health so often the plan below might look very different if we need ot change things to keep that central.”

Typical week

Monday: Easy run at an effort of 2/10 effort. Often Kirsty would add or include some strides if the long run was not too intense on the Sunday before.

Tuesday: am: 30min easy, conversational effort, 2/10.

pm: Longer reps on the road such as 8-10 x 1km alternating a 10km-10 mile effort, with quicker 5km intensity off 90sec rest. For short periods of the year these sessions might be lower in volume working more 3-5km pace and faster.

Wednesday: 45-60min easy run to RPE or HR to allow Kirsty to feel the right intensity based on the previous day’s session.

Thursday: am: 30-40min easy 2-3/10 effort.

pm: Kirsty used to run three pretty big sessions a week. We still keep some quality work on many Thursdays but I have encouraged this to be more focused on mechanics and form rather than big aerobic stress with a big recovery cost. So often this might be a handful of 200-400m reps with generous recovery focused on control. Sometimes this will be very light progression or short hills of 5-6 sets of 8-10 seconds run near maximal intensity with full recovery. If Kirsty has a half-marathon focus sometimes we will shift this run to Friday with Thursday as rest, and then this session would have some more controlled tempo work in, with an easy run on Saturday.

Friday: Rest. For Kirsty a regular rest day every 7-10 days seems to have really helped keep her feeling mentally and physical fresher.

Saturday: More often than not this will be Dave’s sessions which typically longer split tempo reps such as 4 x 8-9min, or cut down sessions starting at a tempo effort and building in intensity. If racing cross-country we might include the tempo work elsewhere in the week dropping one of the other sessions.

Sunday: 80-100min run easy to steady based on feel and energy levels. Some weeks when focused on a half marathon we would use the long run to incorporate effort around race pace for example 25km with 4 x 3km starting slower than HMP and finishing a little faster off a float recovery. Then the Saturday would be easy.

Power yoga and core is incorporated into the week.

PBs: 3000m 9:43.04 (2018), 5000m 17:10.99 (2018), parkrun 16:46 (2019), 10km 33:35 (2019), HM 75:05 (2022)

SAN FRANCISCO -- As the Golden State Warriors go through the final games of the regular season, they are operating with one very clear goal in mind: Finish in the top six in the Western Conference.

"We definitely want to stay out of the play-in tournament," Stephen Curry said following the Warriors' 120-112 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night. "You never know how that can go -- a single game here or there."

"That is dangerous," Draymond Green added. "We'd much rather avoid that."

After Friday night's action, the Warriors currently sit in the sixth seed in the Western Conference, just a few percentage points behind the Phoenix Suns in fifth, however the Suns have the tiebreaker over the Warriors. Both Phoenix and Golden State are a half-game behind the LA Clippers in fourth and are a game-and-a-half up on the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers in seventh and eighth, respectively.

The Warriors aren't tracking the standings, though. And to some extent, it's not worth it.

With how congested the standings are in the Western Conference, seeding will more than likely come down to the final handful of games of the season. Any shift in the standings won't solely be dependent on one individual team's wins, but how every single game throughout the league ends.

"We just try to win every game we play," Green said. "I don't think it's necessarily, 'Aw man, we can catch those guys.' It's a log jam. If you take care of business and win the games you're supposed to -- maybe one or two that you're not supposed to win -- you put yourself in a great position. That's our goal."

Golden State's two most recent games had huge bearings on putting themselves in those positions. Their win against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday created a 2.5-game separation between the two teams. And with the Mavericks losing again on Friday, they've now fallen to 11th in the West.

The Warriors' win against the 76ers was another important move to remain out of the play-in. They have another on Sunday against the Timberwolves.

Last week, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Golden State has to approach each of their remaining games as though they were a playoff game. Green, who has admitted he has a hard time giving 100% for a game played in mid-March, said that it's the time of year to turn performance levels up a notch, echoing Kerr's message.

Their last two games showed signs of the level of play Golden State usually displays in the postseason.

"The mindset is always you're trying to put together a solid run heading into the playoffs. Nobody wants to limo into the playoffs and have to turn it on," Curry said. "We somewhat did that last year but you'd rather not have that kind of uncertainty going in. No matter how it pans out, you want to be firing on all cylinders."

The Warriors have just seven games remaining in their regular-season schedule -- four at home and three on the road. Golden State finally picked up back-to-back road wins on the same trip for the first time this season, but still, there is added pressure to take advantage of their four-game homestand.

Two of those games -- Sunday against the Timberwolves and Tuesday against the New Orleans Pelicans -- are against teams trying to make the play-in tournament or even better, the playoffs.

"It's extremely important," Jordan Poole said about needing to win their remaining home games. The Warriors also host Oklahoma City next week -- another play-in-hungry team.

"With the dynamic and situation this year with our home and road wins and losses, we can't give up too many home losses."

According to Curry, no matter how you look at their final stretch of the season -- whether it's focusing on the standings race, the momentum needed to be built over the final seven games or how individuals want to take on their role, it all leads to the same mindset.

"It all leads to a sense of urgency to win the next game," Curry said, "Because of the time of year we're in and also what's at stake, short term and long term."