Olympics News

MOSCOW - Alexi Prokurorov, a Russian cross country skier who won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, died Friday after he was hit by a car while crossing a road. He was 44.

NORFOLK, Va. - Former track star Tim Montgomery is due in a Norfolk courtroom to learn his punishment on a heroin conviction.

Nearly half the countries that participated in the Beijing Olympics failed to tell organizers where their athletes were so they could be drug tested outside of competition.

LONDON - Any athletes who thought they got away with doping at the Beijing Olympics shouldn't rest easy. The drug police are coming back.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - The drug that got American skeleton racer Zach Lund barred from the Turin Olympics hours before the opening ceremony is being removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The International Olympic Committee will retest all doping samples from the Beijing Games to check for traces of blood boosting drug.

LONDON - The future of men's road cycling in the Olympics could be threatened unless the sport cleans up its doping record.

LONDON - Olympic organizers intend to "bear down" on costs in the wake of the global financial crisis and do everything possible to avoid overruns on the $17 billion budget for the 2012 Summer Games.

BEIJING - International gymnastics officials aren't the only ones who want more information on two members of China's 2000 Olympic team.

LONDON (AFP) - Disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers has backed the decision by the International Olympic Committee to re-test samples provided for dope tests at the Beijing Games, saying it sends out a "strong message".

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC Universal booked a loss on the Beijing Olympics in the third quarter, but will make a profit on the event once all is said and done, executives said Friday.

Balazs Koranyi, a Reuters correspondent in Budapest for five years, took up ultramarathon running in 2004 after retiring from a middle-distance running career that took him to two Olympic Games. In the following story, he describes his run in the Athens to Sparta Spartathlon: to prepare for it, he ran more than a dozen times over the marathon distance this year, including all-night sorties and 100 km runs through mountains.

LONDON (AFP) - Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu has given her support to the International Olympic Committee's decision to retest Beijing Games doping samples in a search for a new blood-boosting drug.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The global financial crisis may affect Russia's preparations to host the 2014 Winter Olympics and require the state to step in with more cash, Interfax news agency quoted a senior official as saying on Thursday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian world record-holder Leisel Jones is likely to skip next year's Rome world championships as she looks towards the 2012 Olympic Games in London, reports said Thursday.

ATHENS (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday said it would retest all frozen samples taken from athletes during the Beijing Games in August for traces of a new generation of drug.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Officials in the north Chinese province at the heart of a toxic milk scandal hid a coal mine explosion that killed more than 30 miners three weeks before the Beijing Olympics, state media reported.

LONDON (AFP) - London's Olympic chiefs are having to rework their budgets as the global credit crunch squeezes private funding for the 2012 Games -- although Team GB's success in Beijing has helped boost the coffers.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese judo is feeling two-timed by Olympic champion Satoshi Ishii, who is getting ready for the world of mixed martial arts only two months after saving the Japanese sport's pride at Beijing.

ATHENS (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday approved all venue sites for the 2014 Winter Games in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek hurdler Fani Halkia told prosecutors Tuesday she had never taken drugs and that someone had sabotaged the tests which caused her to be sent home in disgrace from the Beijing Olympics.

LONDON (Reuters) - London Mayor Boris Johnson assured MPs on Tuesday that authorities were "getting to grips" with security plans for the 2012 Olympic Games after a series of critical reports and the resignation of the city's police chief.

LONDON - Mayor Boris Johnson says authorities must speed up planning for security at London's 2012 Olympic games.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - With temperatures around freezing, the bobsled-skeleton-luge track in Lake Placid opened for the season Monday morning, allowing more than 100 American sliders to officially begin on-ice training.

OSLO, Norway - Norway dropped plans to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics on Monday after new estimates doubled the projected cost of hosting the games in the Arctic city of Tromsoe.

BALTIMORE - Michael Phelps was formally welcomed home Saturday with a two-pronged celebration that began with a parade and ended with a fireworks show at historic Fort McHenry.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - Equestrian rider Rodrigo Pessoa has been stripped of his fifth-place finish at the Beijing Olympics and banned from competing for 4 1/2 months after a positive drug test on his horse.

DENVER - The U.S. Olympic Committee is replacing a name most sports fans know — Peter Ueberroth — with one of the architects of the games most sports fans know — EA Sports.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Ticket for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics go on sale Friday and organizers promise purchasers won't have to race to get a seat.