A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Friday
Austria's Olympic Committee received a letter threatening to kidnap two Austrian athletes at the Games that start this week in Sochi, Russia, the Austria Press Agency reported on Tuesday, citing national committee head Peter Mennel.
'Football is in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace.'
The Belarus team carried Russia's flag as well as their own at the Paralympic Games opening ceremony, in a show of support for their near-neighbours, who were banned from the competition in Rio de Janeiro. The head of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) Vladimir Lukin told the TASS news agency that he was grateful for the gesture at the ceremony on Wednesday night.
Syria's Olympic Committee is sending seven athletes to compete in Rio this month, in athletics, swimming, judo, table tennis and weightlifting.
On Sunday the Ukrainian Tennis Federation urged the sport's governing body the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to immediately expel Russia and Belarus from the organisation and ban Russia from team and individual tournaments. Also, athletes from Ukraine and other nations have called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend Russia and Belarus and ban their athletes from events immediately.
Spectacular IMAGES from the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea
The tally from the weekend showed 37 new cases on Sunday with most testing positive after arrival at the airport
Chinese Olympic women's swimmer Chen Xinyi tested positive for a banned substance at the Rio Olympics on August 7, state media said on Friday citing the country's swimming association, the latest doping scandal to mar competition at the Games.
Speaking to Reuters during a WADA meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, Tygart said as long as sports bodies were represented on WADA, the anti-doping organisation could not deliver on its promise to crack down on cheats.
Russia has lost its appeal against its ban from next month's Rio Paralympics because of a state-sponsored doping programme, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), sports highest tribunal, said on Tuesday. The decision to exclude Russia's entire Paralympics team, initially made on Aug. 7 by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), means at least 250 Russian competitors are set to miss the Sept. 7-18 event.
Russian federal investigators said on Saturday they had opened a criminal case against the country's former anti-doping chief on charges of abuse of office.
European Athletics president Svein Arne Hansen does not expect Russia to return to international competition in time for next year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Russia was stripped of their women's 4 x 400m relay silver medal from the London 2012 Olympics after Antonina Krivoshapka tested positive for drugs in the re-testing of her sample, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday.
Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva, a fierce critic of a Russian track and field ban at the Rio Olympics, was elected an International Olympic Committee member on Sunday but a third of the votes were against her.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Sunday banned all Russians from its own Games next month because of the widespread doping culture that it says has polluted sport in the country.
Boston was selected on Thursday as the American candidate city that will bid to host the 2024 Olympics.
Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain will look to find their footing in new weight categories with the 2024 Paris Olympic Games approaching.
Russia's exclusion from next month's Paralympic Games in Rio is a different situation from the IOC's decision to allow some Russian competitors to take part at the Olympics, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Monday.
The decision not to impose a blanket ban was not uniformly welcomed with Travis Tygart, head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, describing it as "yet another devastating blow to clean athletes."
Russian athlete Olga Pyleva, who won the silver medal in the 15km individual biathlon, was suspended pending a disciplinary investigation into doping.
Goof-up at World Championships: Russian anthem played incorrectly.
Triggering angry criticism from the West and even calls to boycott the Sochi games, Russia adopted in June a ban on homosexual "propaganda" among minors, a law denounced by critics as discriminatory and aimed at stifling dissent.
The International Olympic Committee dashed Russian athletes' hopes of marching behind their national flag at the Winter Games on Sunday, deciding against immediately lifting Russia's Olympic suspension after fresh doping violations
The virus had broken out in the lead-up to the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang last Friday and led to some 1,200 security staff being quarantined. Organisers had to call in military personnel to replace them.
About 41,000 rooms are being provided for the Games and any failure to have them ready in time would be a potential blow to President Vladimir Putin's hopes that the Winter Olympics will show how far Russia has come since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was condemned by the sporting community on Thursday, with President Vladimir Putin's country losing hosting rights for the UEFA Champions League final while Formula One drivers said it was "wrong" to race there this year.
'I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right and frankly, I think it is an emetic (repulsive) prospect to think of Putin glorying in this sporting event'
Three senior athletics officials have had their provisional suspension from the sport extended by the IAAF's Ethics Board as it continues its investigation into their alleged involvement in a suspected cover-up of Russian doping cases.
Ultra-nationalist and schooled in their country's historical grievances, Russian soccer hooligans see themselves as fighting the Kremlin's geopolitical battles in miniature when they clash with foreign fans at the Euro 2016 tournament.
Klitschko and his brother Vitali, also a former world heavyweight champion and now the mayor of Kyiv, have both taken up arms against invading Russian forces.
Croatia clinched a place in next year's World Cup finals on Sunday after holding Greece to a goalless draw at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium in Athens to complete a 4-1 aggregate victory in their playoff tie.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday
Beslan Mudranov won Russia's first gold medal at the Rio Games in judo and fired a warning shot that his country had plenty more to prove.
WADA is at the heart of the biggest doping scandal in years after three Russian whistleblowers went to the media and exposed a massive systematic doping scheme in the country across many sports and involving more than 1,000 athletes.
Athletes heading to the Sochi Winter Olympics have been warned not to wear team kit with large logos promoting their country on their way to Russia due to security concerns, British Olympic officials said on Thursday.
World No. 1 archer Deepika Kumari survived some anxious moments before getting past US teenager Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez 6-4 to sail into the pre-quarter-finals of the women's individual archery competition at the Tokyo Olympics, on Wednesday.
Two namesake coaches who have propelled Russian synchronised swimming to one medal after another hope to blow rivals out of the water once again at the Rio Olympic Games.
The final version of a report which has already revealed a system of state-sponsored doping in Russia is still several months away, its author Richard McLaren said on Friday.
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