• April Ross, Alix Klineman win AVP beach volleyball’s socially distanced return
    NBC Sports

    April Ross, Alix Klineman win AVP beach volleyball’s socially distanced return

    April Ross and Alix Klineman won the first AVP beach volleyball tournament since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, taking the AVP Champions Cup.

  • Rulon Gardner’s highs, lows since Olympic wrestling gold tracked in film
    NBC Sports

    Rulon Gardner’s highs, lows since Olympic wrestling gold tracked in film

    It’s been 20 years since Gardner beat three-time gold medalist Aleksandr Karelin in one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

  • Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya, Olympic figure skater, dies at 20
    NBC Sports

    Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya, Olympic figure skater, dies at 20

    Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya, an Australian Olympic pairs' figure skater, has died at age 20.

  • Film tracks Rulon Gardner's highs, lows in years since gold
    Associated Press

    Film tracks Rulon Gardner's highs, lows in years since gold

    Rulon Gardner is living a quiet life, just the way he likes it. It’s been 20 years since Gardner, a 2,000-to-1 underdog, beat three-time gold medalist Aleksandr Karelin in the Greco Roman heavyweight final at the Sydney Games in one of the greatest upsets in sports history. Winning gold was the start of a ride that began with the farm boy from Wyoming becoming an instant celebrity.

  • 'No solution today' for Tokyo Olympics as Bach announces re-election bid
    AFP

    'No solution today' for Tokyo Olympics as Bach announces re-election bid

    Thomas Bach said Friday he will stand in 2021 for a second term as president of the International Olympic Committee, admitting however there is "no solution today" to the challenges posed by coronavirus to the postponed Tokyo Games. Bach will be eligible for a second and final four-year term. Speaking at an IOC Session held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bach said: "If you, the IOC members, want, I am ready to run for a second term as IOC president and to continue to serve you and this Olympic movement we all love so much for another four years."

  • Kelly Claes, Sarah Sponcil want to be the youngest U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team ever
    NBC Sports

    Kelly Claes, Sarah Sponcil want to be the youngest U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team ever

    Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil can become the youngest U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team in history.

  • Olympic leader tries to head off boycott of 2022 Beijing Games
    LA Times

    Olympic leader tries to head off boycott of 2022 Beijing Games

    IOC President Thomas Bach worries about a possible boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics because of China's human rights record.

  • The Associated Press

    Bach warns against Olympic boycotts, seeks re-election

    IOC president Thomas Bach warned against Olympic boycotts on Friday while also confirming he will seek re-election next year. Bach seems certain to get four more years in 2021 after almost half of the 100 International Olympic Committee members from around the world praised him in an online version of their annual meeting. ''As you can imagine, I could hear this forever,'' Bach quipped during nearly a full hour of tributes to his leadership since his eight-year first term started in 2013, and from members welcoming his candidacy for the second term.

  • Reuters

    Gymnastics: U.S. national body sets new dates for Olympic trials

    The Tokyo 2020 Games are set to run July 23 to Aug. 8 of 2021, after the novel coronavirus outbreak forced their postponement, putting hundreds of would-be Olympians' plans on hold. The USA Gymnastics Championships, which were called off in May, will take place in conjunction with the trials, June 22-27. Top American Simone Biles, a four-time Olympic champion and the most decorated gymnast in world championship history, has said she will make a run for the Games after shaking off doubts that a year delay would derail her training.

  • US Olympic gymnastics trials set for next June
    AFP

    US Olympic gymnastics trials set for next June

    USA Gymnastics will conduct the trials for next year's Tokyo Olympics from June 24-27 in St. Louis, Missouri, the sport's governing body announced Friday. American women have won the past two team Olympic gold medals and boast the past four all-around Olympic champions, including 2016 Rio winner Simone Biles, who has a combined 30 world and Olympic medals. The Tokyo Olympics were to have started next week but were postponed to 2021 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Tokyo Olympic venues lined up, schedule remains the same
    The Associated Press

    Tokyo Olympic venues lined up, schedule remains the same

    The 42 venues for next year’s delayed Tokyo Olympics have been secured and the competition schedule will remain almost identical to the one that would have been used this year. Estimates in Japan say the delay will cost $2 billion to $6 billion, with Japanese taxpayers picking up most of the bills. Olympic officials have not given any overall cost estimates, and have not specified the cost of renegotiating contracts for venues and other facilities.

  • Tokyo Olympic schedule remains the same, venues lined up
    NBC Sports

    Tokyo Olympic schedule remains the same, venues lined up

    The 42 venues for the Tokyo Olympics have been secured and the competition schedule will remain almost identical as the 2020 version.

  • World Surf League’s 2020 season canceled due to coronavirus
    NBC Sports

    World Surf League’s 2020 season canceled due to coronavirus

    The 2020 World Surf League season has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2021 season will start and finish in new ways.

  • IOC's Bach ready to run for second term as president
    Reuters

    IOC's Bach ready to run for second term as president

    "If you the IOC members want, I am ready to run for a second term as IOC president and to continue to serve you and this Olympic movement, which we all love so much, for another four years," he told an IOC session. During the session, which due to the COVID-19 pandemic was held by video conference for the first time, Bach received declarations of support from several dozen IOC members, causing a delay of around 45 minutes. If re-elected, Bach will have to oversee the IOC's recovery after it decided, along with the Japanese government, to postpone this year's Tokyo Olympics for one year due to the pandemic.

  • The Associated Press

    Track group calls for change of Olympic protest rule

    Leaders of a newly formed athletes group are calling for a change to the rule that bans certain protests at the Olympics, saying it “is in fact preventing athletes from displaying Olympism at the Olympic Games.” The board of The Athletics Association, a group of track and field athletes that formed this week to advocate for a greater athlete voice, says it wants changes that will allow athletes to “peacefully protest against social injustices in the world, without punishment or sanctions.” Its statement, released Friday, said “very little has changed” since American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked out of the 1968 Mexico City Games for raising their fists on the medals stand to protest racial inequality in the U.S.

  • Olympic chief Thomas Bach to stand for second term
    AFP

    Olympic chief Thomas Bach to stand for second term

    Thomas Bach said Friday he will stand in 2021 for a second term as president of the International Olympic Committee. The 66-year-old German was elected for an eight-year term as Olympic chief in September 2013, taking over from Belgian Jacques Rogge. Bach will be eligible for a second and final four-year term.

  • Pound: Olympic movement faces biggest threat since boycotts
    AFP

    Pound: Olympic movement faces biggest threat since boycotts

    Athletes and the Olympic movement face their greatest crisis since the 1980s Cold War-era boycotts in the COVID-19 pandemic, long-time International Olympic Committee member Richard Pound told AFP on Thursday. The Canadian lawyer, a former IOC vice president and World Anti-Doping Agency president, said the global coronavirus outbreak that postponed the Tokyo Olympics to next year has unsettled broadcasters, officials and athletes who dream of Olympic glory. The United States led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Soviet Union responded by directing a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the last time athletes faced such lost opportunities as COVID-19 could inflict, with fears it could frustrate next year's plans in Tokyo and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

  • AVP Champions Cup marks beach volleyball’s socially distanced return
    NBC Sports

    AVP Champions Cup marks beach volleyball’s socially distanced return

    The AVP holds its first and only beach volleyball tournaments of the season the next three weekends with many safety measures in place.

  • Olympic chiefs talk Tokyo amid virus surge
    AFP

    Olympic chiefs talk Tokyo amid virus surge

    Olympic chiefs meet Friday to discuss ways of pushing ahead with plans for a "frugal" Tokyo Games next year, just as the Japanese capital is rocked by a record number of daily coronavirus infections. Tokyo is on its highest COVID-19 alert level after a spike in new cases, Governor Yuriko Koike warned Wednesday, as experts said the rising infections were a clear "red flag". No one has died of coronavirus in Tokyo for three weeks.

  • Olympic wrestlers tie for gold medal, 8 years after the competition
    NBC Sports

    Olympic wrestlers tie for gold medal, 8 years after the competition

    A pair of doping cases led to the first Olympic gold-medal tie in wrestling history, eight years after the matches took place.

  • Deajah Stevens, Olympic sprinter, suspended through Tokyo Games
    NBC Sports

    Deajah Stevens, Olympic sprinter, suspended through Tokyo Games

    Deajah Stevens, a U.S. Olympic 200m sprinter, was suspended 18 months, through Aug. 15, 2021, for missing drug tests, ruling her out of the Tokyo Games.

  • Virtual figure skating competition offers glimpse of sport’s possible future
    NBC Sports

    Virtual figure skating competition offers glimpse of sport’s possible future

    The 2020 Peggy Fleming Trophy, the first virtual figure skating competition, acted as possible proof-of-concept to offer a chance to preserve some of the figure skating season.

  • IOC postpones Dakar Youth Olympics by 4 years to 2026
    NBC Sports

    IOC postpones Dakar Youth Olympics by 4 years to 2026

    The 2022 Dakar Youth Olympics were postponed by four years in further fallout from delaying the Tokyo Olympics to 2021.

  • Olympics boss reluctant to hold Tokyo Games behind closed doors
    AFP

    Olympics boss reluctant to hold Tokyo Games behind closed doors

    Banning fans from the Tokyo Olympics is "clearly something we don't want", International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach said, adding that "multiple scenarios" were under consideration for the rescheduled Games. Bach said safety was the top concern for organisers of the Tokyo Olympics, which were due to start next week but have been postponed for a year over the COVID-19 pandemic. "Olympic Games behind closed doors is clearly something we do not want," the IOC president told reporters in a video call.

  • IOC remains fully committed to Tokyo Olympics, youth games in Senegal postponed
    Reuters Videos

    IOC remains fully committed to Tokyo Olympics, youth games in Senegal postponed

    RESENDING WITH COMPLETE SHOT LIST AND SCRIPT VIDEO SHOWS: IOC PRESIDENT THOMAS BACH SPEAKING AT A VIRTUAL NEWS CONFERENCE SHOWS: LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND (JULY 15, 2020) (IOC HANDOUT - ACCESS ALL) 1. IOC PRESIDENT, THOMAS BACH, WALKS INTO COMMITTEE MEETING ROOM 2. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING IN PROGRESS 3. SOUNDBITE (English) IOC PRESIDENT, THOMAS, BACH SAYING: "So we are, and we remain, fully committed to celebrate Tokyo 2020 next year in July and August." 4. WHITE FLASH 5. SOUNDBITE (English) IOC PRESIDENT, THOMAS BACH, SAYING: "First of all, the IOC executive board and the entire IOC is following the principle that we have established already before the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games that the first priority is about the safety of the participants of the Olympic Games. For this reason we are working now on multiple scenarios of the organisation of the games with regard to the health situation which we do not know how it will be in one year from now and all these questions are being dealt with in a joint task force with Tokyo 2020 and in an all partners task force, in which the World Health Organisation is playing a very prominent role. So, we continue to be guided by the advise of the World Health Organisation and based on this advice and based on the ever developing situation, we are preparing a multiple scenarios with regard to addressing the health situation next July and August." 6. VARIOUS OF EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING IN PROGRESS 7. SOUNDBITE (English) IOC PRESIDENT, THOMAS BACH, SAYING: "Secondly, Senegal and the IOC have mutually agreed to postpone the Youth Olympic Games, Dakar 2022 to the year 2026. This agreement was approved today by the IOC Executive Board and will be submitted to the IOC session on Friday (July 17) for ratification. The proposal for a postponement was made by the president of Senegal Macky Sall in a telephone conversation with me two days ago. And I welcomed this move by President Macky Sall and after an in-depth discussion on the subject we decided then to establish then as the new date 2026." 8. WHITE FLASH 9. SOUNDBITE (English) IOC PRESIDENT THOMAS BACH SAYING: "You have to imagine that if these Youth Olympic Games would have been held in 2022 this would have meant for the IOC, the IFs the NOCs that we would have had to master five games in just three years." 10. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING IN PROGRESS 11. SCREEN SHOWING PARTICIPANTS FOLLOWING THE MEETING VIRTUALLY 12. SOUNDBITE (English) IOC PRESIDENT, THOMAS BACH, SAYING: "Both the IOC and Senegal remain fully committed to the great success of these Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event ever to be organised on the African continent." 13. OLYMPIC RINGS OUTSIDE IOC HEADQUARTERS STORY: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains fully committed to staging the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and is considering multiple scenarios for them to take place safely, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Wednesday (July 15) in a virtual press conference. Japan and the IOC postponed the Tokyo Games until 2021 in March because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Organisers have since spoken of trying to simplify the event - which had been due to start on July 24 - to reduce costs and ensure athletes' safety. Bach said the IOC's coordination commission had reported "very good work in progress" and that more details would be given to a full IOC session which will take place by video conference on Friday (July 17). He said that holding events without spectators was clearly something the IOC did not want. Bach also said the IOC had agreed with host nation Senegal to postpone the 2022 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar until 2026. The decision will have to be ratified by the full IOC session on Friday. (Production: Iain Axon)