Football

Seahawks’ Chancellor: ‘Time for the next chapter’ — Seattle Seahawks strong safety Kam Chancellor said scans on his injured neck have shown no improvement and declared it was “time for the next chapter.” Chancellor, 30, had been awaiting further clarity on his neck, which he injured in a game against the Arizona Cardinals in November. In a posting on his Twitter account Sunday night, Chancellor said his latest scans “showed no healing.” “I’ve played through all types of bruises and injuries at a high level. But this one, I just can’t ignore,” he wrote. Chancellor never used the word “retirement” in his statement, which may have been deliberate. Chancellor signed an extension through the 2020 season last August which contained guaranteed money in case of injury. An official retirement could open up the possibility of forfeiting some of that money. Chancellor was named to four Pro Bowl teams (2011, 2013-15) and was twice a second-team All-Pro selection (2013, 2014). He appeared in 109 career games for Seattle with 93 starts after being selected in the fifth-round of the 2010 NFL draft.

Running

Record-breaking ultrarunner Donald Ritchie dies — Donald Ritchie, one of the world’s top ultrarunners, who set more than a dozen records traversing distances better suited to an automobile than a human being, died on June 16 at his home in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland. He was 73. His friend Colin Youngson, a former Scottish marathon champion, confirmed the death in an email. He said that Ritchie had diabetes and heart and lung problems, but that he was not sure of the specific cause of death. Ritchie began running competitively in the early 1960s as a sprinter, but he soon found that he was not deterred by distance. In time he adopted a grueling training regimen, sometimes running more than 150 miles a week in his native Scotland. “Each time I ended a run I had plenty left inside me, so I entered longer and longer races,” Ritchie told the British newspaper The Independent in 1997. “Soon I was finding even marathons were not long enough for my liking, so in my late 20s I turned to ultradistance running.” Any race longer than a traditional marathon, about 26.2 miles, qualifies as an ultramarathon. Some stretch more than 150 miles, and in some the distance is unspecified, but athletes must run more or less continuously for long periods.

CYCLING

Report: Tour organizers want Froome to sit out race — Le Monde newspaper says Tour de France organizers have forbidden four-time champion Chris Froome from taking part in this year’s race. According to the newspaper, Amaury Sport Organisation have informed Team Sky they do not want Froome to be on the starting line in order to protect the image of the race because the British rider is at the center of an ongoing doping case. Le Monde says Team Sky has already lodged an appeal to the court of arbitration of the French Olympic Committee, which will debate the case on Tuesday and is expected to issue a decision on the following day. ASO did not comment on the report. Le Monde quoted a Team Sky spokesman saying “we are confident that Chris will be riding the Tour as we know he has done nothing wrong.” The Tour de France starts Saturday in the western Vendee region.

Basketball

U.S. closes out 1st round of World Cup qualifying — The U.S. finished first-round qualifying for the Basketball World Cup on Sunday by beating Cuba 93-62. Reggie Hearn and Xavier Munford each scored 16 points for the Americans, who bounced back from their loss at Mexico on Thursday to finish atop their group with a 5-1 record. The U.S. had already clinched a spot in the second round, which begins in September. The final game of this stage was the first for the Americans in Havana since 1991, when they earned a bronze medal in the Pan Am Games with a team that included Duke stars Christian Laettner and Grant Hill.

— From wire reports