LONDON – Because this is Olympic boxing, nothing much makes sense. And so Friday night Errol Spence, the last American fighter remaining in these Games, left the ExCel Centre certain he had lost only to be told hours later that he had, in fact, won.

The reversal came about not because amateur boxing's ruling body determined Spence had gotten the better of his opponent, India's Krishan Vikas, but because Vikas should have had points deducted for a number of fouls and intentionally spitting out his mouthpiece during the bout.

"I am going to make the most of this second chance I have been given," Spence said in a statement released by USA Boxing.

Errol Spence's arm was raised despite the decision initially going against him. (Reuters)Because this is Olympic boxing, an event the U.S. once dominated, the result is a symbol of just how far the once-mighty program has fallen. These days it takes an executive ruling to get past the Round of 32.

Yes, Spence is still alive, but that doesn't hide the reality that USA Boxing has become a fiasco beyond repair.

Never

Read More »from Spence gets second life after appeal, but USA Boxing still in shambles

LONDON – The Olympics will not rot. Peter Tudor is sure of this. In fact, as the man in charge of turning the facilities at the Olympic Park into dust he'd better be sure. Because if he does his job right, many of the buildings you see on TV will be gone in a matter of months.

The basketball arena where the U.S. scored a record 156 points against Nigeria? Soon it will be a pile of girders and plastic seats.

The Aquatics Centre in which Michael Phelps won his 16th gold medal? Most of its stands will be ripped away.

[ Photos: Beijing's 2008 Olympic venues in disrepair ]

The 16,000 seat field hockey stadium with its brilliant blue turf? Workers will begin dismantling it right after the Paralympic Games.

"Sometimes when I walk around the grounds I look at the Aquatics Centre without all the extra seats and the basketball arena after the tournament when we will be building houses there," says Tudor, the director of venues for the London Legacy Development corporation – the

Read More »from Olympic Park will be dismantled, but from the rubble will rise an East London neighborhood

LONDON – Kayla Harrison stood Thursday afternoon on the podium, holding the first judo gold medal the United States has ever won. A stereo played "The Star-Spangled Banner." Tears rolled down her face.

And so many images raced through her mind.

There she was as a frustrated teenager falling on the mat. There was her coach Jimmy Pedro, shouting, demanding she get up. There she (Getty Images)was crawling to her feet as Pedro kept yelling – pushing, pushing, always pushing, telling her she had to do more.

Harrison closed her eyes. In front of her an American flag rose toward the rafters, and she whispered those words Pedro always told her to say:

"This is my day."

"This is my purpose."

"Kayla Harrison, Olympic champion."

How many times had she repeated these things these past few days? For the last five years, they were the final words she said before falling asleep. Pedro thinks he must have said them 150 times on Thursday as they waited the interminable hour between each of her four

Read More »from Kayla Harrison wins first U.S. Olympic judo gold medal after proving toughness long ago

LONDON – The path to the Olympics is not cheap, something a New Zealander named Logan Campbell discovered upon returning home from his taekwondo loss four years ago in Beijing. He faced a mountain of bills from travel, equipment, and training, almost $120,000 worth in American currency, and he couldn't keep asking his parents to pay it.

London was going to cost him another $200,000. He needed money. He needed it fast.

So he opened a brothel.

Not surprisingly, the brothel, and the publicity it stirred in Auckland when he announced his intentions in 2009, did not impress his country's sports federation. The people in charge of protecting the nation's sporting image did not see an athlete talking openly about the selling of flesh to fund his trip to the next Olympics as a reflection of their values. The fact brothels are legal in New Zealand, as long as a list of guidelines is met, didn't much impress the country's sports ministers.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee sent him a

Read More »from New Zealander used brothel to fund Olympic taekwondo training

LONDON – The fear is never far away. It looms in front of each diver bringing with it a terrible promise. And no matter how much they try to tuck it away, pretending it isn’t there, the dread still churns deep inside their minds.

The board, they say.

They must never hit it.

Yet the smallest misjudgment – a bad step, a wrong leap – might hurtle them blindly toward certain calamity. So they never speak of their fear, vowing not to discuss the sound a skull makes when it smacks against the board and the pool below turns crimson with blood.

"There’s really no benefit to dwelling on the negative," Canadian diver Reuben Ross said Wednesday afternoon.

Six weeks ago, Alexandre Despatie, his partner in the synchronized 3-meter springboard, did the thing that terrifies all divers. He hit his head on the board. It happened in Madrid, and when the accident occurred, there was all the requisite blood and broken skin. Despatie had a gigantic gash that stretched around the top of his

Read More »from Alexandre Despatie bounces back in Olympics after hitting head on board six weeks ago

LONDON – They do everything in their life together, from shopping to eating to leaping blindly off five-story platforms, so it was fitting that Canadians Roseline Filion and Meaghan Benfeito would be left waiting for endless, anxious seconds wondering if they would win an Olympic medal.

Time ticked slowly. The crowd inside the whale-shaped Aquatics Centre waited, silent. A hush loomed over the pool.

Filion and Benfeito were sure they had won a bronze medal in the 10-meter synchronized diving event. The scores added up from their previous four dives. "All you got to do is land on your head," Benfeito told Filion moments before they took their final plunge together. And yet it was taking forever for the scores to post on the board across from the big pool.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Finally the numbers appeared: 337.62. Third place. A bronze medal. And the two women who have walked almost in step for the past seven years fell into a long embrace.

[ Photos:

Read More »from Canada takes bronze medal in 10-meter synchronized diving

LONDON – She could see the men gathering along the track where she trained back home in Kabul, a daunting gauntlet of soccer and volleyball players surrounding the lone woman in the stadium. And Tahmina Kohistani tensed. Something felt wrong. Then they began to shout.

"You can't win a medal from the Olympics, it's not your job!"

"Just be in your house!"

"It's not good for us for an Afghan girl to run!"

"Be behind your man!"

For a moment, tears burned in her eyes. It was not long before she would go to London, to become the only female athlete from a country that does not believe women should play sports. And after 10 minutes of the taunts, she went home that day saying she would not come back. She said she was through. She said she could never face the men again.

 But the next morning she did return, because if she didn't, who would? Who would tell the women in her country that they could run too? Who would push for their freedom?

A few days later the men were

Read More »from Afghani female sprinter resists country's old ideals, vows to show women new future