Yahoo! Sports - Olympics News

Rio organizers have chosen the logo for the 2016 Olympics, but it won't be unveiled until an official ceremony on New Year's Eve on Copacabana beach. The logo's design was picked from eight finalists on Thursday and will now be sent to the International Olympic Committee for approval. Rio 2016 committee president Carlos Arthur Nuzman says "a historic" phase of the games has...

Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek is taking some time off. How much time off, he hasn't decided. Lysacek said Thursday he won't compete the rest of this year, meaning he will skip the Grand Prix season. But he still wants to skate, and hasn't ruled out the U.S. championships in mid-January.

IOC president Jacques Rogge believes the cricket match-fixing scandal shows that illegal betting has become as big a blight on sports as doping. Without taking any stand on the fixing allegations against three Pakistan cricketers, Rogge said Thursday the main problem for sports across the globe was illegal companies betting on incremental parts of a game.

Triathletes at the 2000 Olympics had to negotiate Sydney's shark-infested harbor, so the ducks and geese of London's Hyde Park seem unlikely to cause much fear in 2012. Revealing their plans for the first "downtown" triathlon since the event's debut at the Sydney Games, the London 2012 Olympic organizers also promised that the park's thriving wildlife would not be unduly...

Munich's bid to stage the 2018 Winter Olympics will not be derailed by bid chief Willy Bogner's illness, the head of Munich's supervisory board said on Thursday.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair credits Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi with helping London secure the 2012 Olympics. Blair also says in his new autobiography that he was dubious about bidding for the games, never thought London would win and feared being "humiliated" by losing to the French.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has picked Alan Ashley as its new chief of sport performance, part of a restructuring after a six-month internal review by CEO Scott Blackmun. Ashley, who was the managing director of sport performance, takes over for Mike English, who will move into a position that oversees the Olympic Training Centers and other USOC facilities.

One of the key critics of the U.S. Olympic Committee during its CEO switch has left his job as the leader of USA Triathlon. The federation announced the departure of executive director Skip Gilbert in a brief news release, offering no explanation. Gilbert also leads the council of America's national governing bodies, though his future role there was not explained.

Sports Editors: The U.S. Olympic Committee is accepting requests from media organizations for accreditation to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The application form is available through the USOC's media-specific site, USOCPressbox,org. Click here to go to the request site: http://pressbox.teamusa.org/Pages/Credentials.aspx.

Cathy Freeman will once again light the cauldron when Sydney celebrates the 10th anniversary of an Olympics which the then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch called the "best Olympic Games ever." On Sept. 15, 2000, Freeman was dressed in a full-length white body suit to light the flame atop the Olympic stadium.

London will mark the two-year countdown to the homecoming of the Paralympics on Sunday, celebrating the growing prominence of the event and its start in England in 1948. More than 500,000 people have already registered interest in buying tickets on the London 2012 website for the 12-day event, and organizers hope to attract a global TV audience of 4 billion.

The man who managed the bobsled, skeleton and luge track at Utah Olympic Park for much of the last decade has died at 45. The U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation said David Dinger died Wednesday from kidney cancer. Dinger's career in sliding started after a luge clinic, shortly before the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

Planners have given London 2012 Olympic organisers permission to build a temporary water polo centre with an inflatable roof.

Canadian women's hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser isn't sure if she'll retire after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when she'll be 35.

By ALEX KENNEDY Associated Press Writer

Canadian women's hockey star Hayley Wickenheiser isn't sure if she'll retire after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when she'll be 35. The four-time Olympian was a keynote speaker at the world hockey summit in Toronto, and her comments near the end of her 10-minute speech Thursday indicated that Sochi would be her final games.

A crescendo of drums, an eclectic array of singers and an elaborate fireworks display brought an end to the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) on Thursday.

Better athletes will be coming to the next Youth Olympics, IOC president Jacques Rogge said Thursday. Rogge didn't name which countries declined to send their best teenage athletes to Singapore for this year's games, but he said they promised to do so at the next edition in Nanjing, China, in 2014.

Giancarlo Peris has lit a cauldron to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1960 Rome Olympics, re-enacting the duties bestowed upon him half a century ago. Peris won a regional race in 1960 that came with the prize of being the final torchbearer. Now 68, Peris jogged at an impressive pace up some stairs in Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio before a crowd featuring dozens of medalists from...

Spanish Olympic swimmer Sergio Garcia is ineligible for the 2012 London Games after being banned for one year for failing to report his whereabouts for drug testing. Swimming's governing body FINA says it imposed the ban because Garcia broke the rules three times within 18 months. Garcia swam the 200-meter breaststroke heats at the Beijing Olympics.