The Ethiopian Athletics Federation has suspended 35 top runners from competition, including world record holder and defending Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele, for skipping a mandatory training camp. If enforced, the ban could keep nearly all of the country's top runners from competing in August's London Olympic Games. Bekele's agent Jos Hermens said that the ban was a reaction to Ethiopia's poor showing at the 2011 world championships. "Of course, Kenenisa Bekele will be at the Olympics," Her... Read More
The city of Malmö, Sweden has put forth plans to build a 30-mile, four-lane bicycle "superhighway" to neighboring city of Lund. The path would include two lanes in each direction and would trace a right of way already established by a rail line that connects the cities. The path could feature repair stops and would take eight years to complete at a cost of only $7 million.
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Italian mountaineer Mario Merelli died on Wednesday in a fall from Pizzo Redorta in the Bergamo Alps, near Val Seriana, Italy. A helicopter team recovered his body after the accident. Merelli, 49, was an accomplished climber who had summitted 11 of the Himalayas' 14 eight-thousand-meter mountains, including Everest, which he climbed twice. In 2005, Merelli summitted Annapurna with Ed Viesturs, for Viesturs's final eight-thousander.
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Organizers for the 2012 London Olympic Games on Thursday unveiled the most high-tech anti-doping lab in the history of the Olympics. The center will operate 24 hours a day during the Games, allowing 150 anti-doping scientists and a team of volunteers to test as many as 400 samples per day, the highest number of any Olympic Games. The center is the first Olympic anti-doping center sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, but the company's management insists it will have no role i... Read More
Swiss skier Didier Cuche, who has won four of the last five World Cup downhill titles, announced today in Kitzbuehul, Austria that he will retire at the end of this season. Now 37, Cuche is still racing with the best in the world. He is ranked eighth in overall FIS World Cup standings, and with one win in downhill already this year remains in contention to win his fifth career downhill title. "I'm in top form and I can still aspire to win races. It's in this condition that I wish to retire fro... Read More
