olympics Page 69 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How The Sochi Olympics Became A $51 Billion Quagmire
The Sochi Olympic games will be the most expensive ever held, by an egregious amount. $51 billion in total, and since Winter Olympics are smaller than Summer games, the Russian government is spending an average of $520 million per event—four times as much as the previous record-holder, China. Where ...
SNL Lampoons Russian Anti-Gay Laws With Billie Jean King Bit
Earlier in the week, the United States announced its delegation to Russia for the Sochi Olympics and it was pretty obviously a giant middle finger pointed at Moscow. Two openly-gay and one soon-to-be-openly-gay delegates were named to the delegation, including tennis Hall of Famer Billie Jean King....
How To Pronounce "Sochi," Site Of The Winter Olympics
Craggs and I were in a cab yesterday, half-listening to a Cabvision video of some random Olympic skier talking about Sochi. She pronounced it Sach-ee, like Versace, and we spent the next several minutes wondering if we had been mispronouncing it all along. It seemed possible, after all. Russian as a...
Who Would Brian Boitano Do?
Figure skater Brian Boitano's announcement that he's gay spurred a confused discussion in the office this morning, but no, as it turns out, he only first came out today....
America's Olympic Delegation Is A Calculated Insult To Russia
For the last five Olympics, the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremonies has included either the President, Vice-President, or First Lady. Not this time, Russia. You get the President's assistant, and a few openly gay former athletes....
Finding Gillooly: What Happened To Figure Skating's Infamous Villain?
"Twenty years," said Jeff Stone, standing at the door of his home in Clackamas, Ore. "Is that what it is?"...
American Football Gains IOC Recognition
The International Olympic Committee officially granted provisional recognition to the International Federation of American Football. This does not mean football will be an Olympic sport—but it's a necessary first step....
Jesse Owens's 1936 Olympic Gold Medal Is Up For Sale
A lot of times, sports memorabilia can feel like low-stakes archaeology—amusing, but vacant of context to the world beyond sports. Jesse Owens is one of the exceptions. ...
Olympic Diver Tom Daley Announces He's Dating A Man
Nineteen-year-old British diver Tom Daley, who won a Bronze at the London Games and became both heartthrob and gay icon, announced in a Youtube video this morning that he's in a relationship with another man. ...
Olympic Torchbearer Briefly Lights Self On Fire
As former Olympic bobsledder Pyotr Makarchuk carried the torch through the Siberian city of Abakan on Wednesday, he spilled some flaming liquid fuel onto his jacket. It was promptly put out by his escorts, avoiding the worst Gazprom commercial ever. ...
Pete Holmes Does Extremely Awkward Interview With Lolo Jones
Comedian Pete Holmes has found a bit of a niche on his comedy show: he's really good at conducting painfully awkward interviews with famous athletes. ...
In 1984 Epyx Sent A Commodore 64 Copy Of <em>Summer Games</em> To The Soviets, Who Couldn't Play It Because They Only Had Ataris
Thirty years ago, we didn’t have fancy PS4s to drool over. No, we had to type in things like “LOAD”*”,8,1 to play games, and those games were real. One of the best, of course, was Epyx’s Summer Games, which let you take part in such Olympic competitions as swimming, diving, sprinting, and gymnastic...
Russian Hockey Team Makes Gold-Medal Worthy Olympics Music Video
Oh my god, oh my god, this video is really too much. Russians! They're so cute and kitschy!...
The Olympic Torch Is Going To Ooooouter Spaaaaaaaaace
Gee, this is swell, no? Fire in space! Olympic fire in space! Space men taking Olympic fire into space!...
William Harrison, Author Of Sports Dystopia <em>Rollerball</em>, Has Died
William Harrison, the author and screenwriter whose 1975 classic Rollerball semi-accurately foretold how the future of sport would suck, died Tuesday, just shy of his 80th birthday....
The Black Power Salute That Rocked The '68 Olympics
Forty-five years ago, on Oct. 16. 1968, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the medal podium at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists during the playing of the American national anthem. Millions of their countrymen were outraged. As in b...
The Olympic Torch Keeps Going Out
The Olympic torch relay began in Moscow two days ago, and the flame has already been extinguished four times. It's a slight embarrassment for the host nation, but a fairly large one for the factory that made the torches, and also happens to make ballistic missiles....
Olympic Flame Snuffed Out In Russia
There is no better image for these Sochi Olympics than light going dark once inside the Russian border. ...
Return Of The Meme: McKayla Maroney Vaults Again
One year and three leg surgeries after London, McKayla Maroney has returned to competition on the vault. And from a performance standpoint, not much has changed. She does the two-and-a-half twister that made her famous (before the meme made her even more famous) just as well as she did at the Olympi...