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For more than a century, the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup have represented the pinnacle of sporting achievement and global unity. They have inspired generations of athletes, connected billions of fans and created extraordinary commercial value. The International Olympic Committee and FIFA have transformed themselves into two of the world’s most powerful sporting organizations, controlling…
The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, a move that makes it all the more likely — probable — a full Russian team will compete at the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games. The decision Tuesday was inevitable. Too, appropriate — and way past overdue, the key step in correction of a series of IOC actions taken after the Russian invasion of…
“The kind of movement we want for the future must … be reflected in how we lead,” IOC president Kirsty Coventry said Wednesday amid her opening remarks to the assembly. OK, so how is Kirsty Coventry leading? What is “Fit for the Future,” really? How about a $10,000 “grant” for every Olympic athlete? What about, though, a potential Hunger Games-style infighting for those sports - er, disciplines -…
The won’t-go-away controversy over new IOC president Kirsty Coventry’s assertion that she is not a proponent of prize money at the Olympics underscores the disconnect — the chasm, really — between the vision of the modern Games as they have been, a chase for glory, and glory only, as memorably depicted in “Chariots of Fire,” and the way they need to evolve to be now, in our 21st century. Nothing…
The men’s World Cup is nearly upon us, and with it a telling if not altogether disturbing push in some quarters to turn to Celsius, meters and, worst of all, British English. We the People! This summer, as the World Cup bracket plays out, marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The 13 colonies broke away from the British. We won. This is the United States of America. And so…
Kirsty Coventry has been president of the International Olympic Committee for, by her count at a news conference Thursday, 318 days. In almost every meaningful way, Coventry is now executing a pivot away from predecessor Thomas Bach, IOC president from September 2013 until last June. Indeed, it is said behind the scenes in Lausanne, at IOC headquarters, that Coventry has little to maybe no…
Yu-Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei, a gold medalist in women’s boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, took bronze Monday in the 2026 Asian continental boxing championships. In Paris, Lin won the 57-kilogram class (just over 125 pounds) to become Taiwan’s first Olympic boxing champion. Heading toward two years later, Lin is now fighting at 60 kilos (132 pounds). The Asian championships were held in the…
The 2026 Milano-Cortina Paralympic Games drew Sunday to a close, with China atop the medals table, the United States second and — what’s this — Russia third. The successful — no other word for it — reintegration of the Russians at the Paralympics foreshadows, almost certainly, not only what is likely but what should most certainly be the case at the Olympics, presumably if not probably as soon as…
here is stupid and then there is the decision by officials at Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon to award “finisher” medals to untold numbers of people who ran 18 miles instead of the prescribed 26.2. Organizers said heat prompted the move. Even at the beach, by late morning it was nearly 80 degrees, or 27-ish degrees Celsius. Inland, along the course, it was for sure hotter. So what? The idea that…
Skiing got its Bud Greenspan moment here at these 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Games. In men’s slalom, India’s 35-year-old Arif Khan, with back pain and more, finished dead last. In a sport in which races are won by hundredths and sometimes thousandths of a second, Khan finished nearly 48 seconds behind the winner, Switzerland’s Loic Meillard. But — Khan finished. In conditions that knocked more…
