On paper, Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi is entirely average for athletes competing in the women's 10-meter air rifle event at the 2012 London Olympics. There's just one difference: when she steps up to the line to shoot, she will be eight months pregnant.
Looking ahead to the headlines of our game in 2012, here's where much of the domestic U.S. soccer news will come from, everything from the awesome to the awful and points in between:
In 2006, then-NFLPA head Gene Upshaw famously dismissed the possibility of having blood draws to test players for human growth hormone, which is undetectable in urine, with the argument that he was not ready to turn NFL players into human "pin cushions." The premise was difficult to believe. But there was another reason not to embrace HGH testing at that time: It wasn't very good.
Kim Yuna is one of South Korea's biggest stars and the ice skater who won the country's first figure skating gold medal at a Winter Olympic Games last year in Vancouver.
(Each month SI.com highlights those in the sports media who have proved newsworthy, both for positive and negative achievements.)
As the Comcast/NBC presentation neared its conclusion Tuesday morning at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, Bob Costas stepped to the front of the room to deliver the emotional highlight of the allocution.
If U.S. cross-country skiers didn't ply their trade in a vacuum, Kikkan Randall would be adorning magazine covers and selling shoes, watches and electronics. The Olympian from Alaska won her second straight sprint World Cup race last weekend, holding off two Norwegians on their home snow in Drammen, Norway. That's like beating the old Celtics on the parquet. One of the skiers Randall outsprinted was Marit Bjoergen, who won five medals, including three golds, at the Vancouver Olympics and now has seven for her career.
Skiers understand the capricious nature of fame in a sport that is largely hidden from public view for years at a time. It's all about timing. (And back stories, too, but that's another matter. And sometimes it's about timing and back stories together). You can win all the races you like, on any mountainside in the world, but unless you win at the Olympics, you are anonymous. Ted Ligety knows all about this.
The head of the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee warned that an athlete could get "badly injured or worse" almost a full year before Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed during a practice run at the 2010 Winter Games.
Snowboard queen Kelly Clark isn't resting on her laurels or her board. At the X Games in Aspen, Colo., over the weekend, the 27-year-old, two-time Olympic medalist became the first woman to land a frontside 1080, on her way to a gold medal in the superpipe.
These are some of the outstanding male athletes, listed in alphabetical order, in Olympic sports for the year 2010. Last week, we looked at some of the top female athletes.
Here are some of the most outstanding female athletes of the year in Olympic sports, listed in alphabetical order with a nod to the Korean and Chinese whose family names appear first. Next week, we'll look at some of the top males.
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Nov. 29. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer.
After the World Championships in Rome last summer when he won a bronze medal in the 10-kilometer open water swim event, Fran Crippen talked glowingly about how the open-water event essentially revived his career.
She's one of South Korea's biggest stars -- with sellout shows, legions of devoted fans and a plethora of advertising deals.
More than seven months after the death of a luger practicing for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the Coroners Service of British Columbia has ruled Nodar Kumaritashvili's death an accident caused by multiple blunt force injuries.
updated: Tue Oct 05 2010 10:01:00
In February, former figure skater Elvis Stojko discussed how the luge accident may affect athletes at the winter games.
Brady Ellison took another step toward a world No. 1 ranking, stunning Olympic gold medalist Im Dong-hyun of South Korea to win the World Cup Archery final in Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday. Ellison first rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the second set against India's Jayanta Talukdar in the semifinals, winning the match on a one-arrow shoot-off. Ellison, 22, then beat Im Dong-hyun in the finals to earn the title and avenge an earlier loss to Im two years ago in Antalya, Turkey.
(TORONTO) -- I'm here at the World Hockey Summit trying to assimilate three days of information and ideas that span the spectrum of considerations. This forum included everything from what is best for the youngest of youth players to all the political and economic issues connected with NHL players participating in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
I swear I don't wake up in the morning looking for reasons to snip at Brian Burke. I like the guy. I think he's one of the best general managers in the game. But geez, it's hard to look the other way after his Tomas Kaberle fumble and now this silliness about using the World Cup to grow the sport.
As sprinting announcements go, this one isn't official until all the hamstrings and egos are actually in the starting blocks, but barring a late withdrawal, the 100 meters at the DN Galan Diamond League track meet in Stockholm on Friday night could be the highlight of the season. Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt has announced that he will be sprinting against a field that includes his countryman Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay of the U.S., a loaded roster that the sport rarely sees outside of Olympics and world championships. Since athletes often duck and dodge rivals to protect their reputation, Bolt's participation is further sign that -- with his most recent defeat coming in 2008 -- he has no serious challengers.
Don't count Apolo Ohno out of the 2014 Olympics just yet. The man with eight Olympics medals, the most of any U.S. Winter Olympian in history, hasn't ruled out a return to the ranks of competitive short track speedskating. "I've been so busy since Vancouver and I haven't been on the ice since," Ohno said Monday in New York. "Tuesday was my first day on the ice. I'm taking a long break from the sport. I'm looking forward to seeing the London Games, the Sochi Games in some capacity, but I haven't made a decision about that yet ... I think it would take me a minimum of two years to be ready for another Olympics. This is a true break I've never had before. I've had urges. I wanted to go to Utah and just show up for training."
In its first major tournament without official status as an event on the upcoming Olympic calendar, the U.S. softball team roared through the competition to win the world championship on Friday in Caracas, Venezuela, beating Japan, 7-0, in the gold-medal game. The U.S. team won all 10 of its contests, outscoring opponents 95-6 during the tournament and avenging a loss at the Beijing Olympics to the Japanese, who won the Olympic gold medal by beating them, 3-1, in the final game in 2008. Softball and baseball were dropped from the Olympic program beginning in 2012. Rugby and golf were added for the 2016 Games in Rio, though softball, baseball and other sports will have chances to get back in during subsequent years as the International Olympic Committee tries to update its program. The lack of parity at the top of the sport was one of the reasons cited by IOC members as a need to remove softball from the Games. The U.S. team has now won seven straight world titles since 1986 without
From singing the National Anthem at the Vancouver Olympics to appearing on the High School Musical 2 soundtrack - here's the scoop on the 16-year-old star
Every time I hear another dismal report about how Greece is going to drag the whole world into an economic abyss, I ask out loud: Does anybody remember that only six years ago Athens proudly hosted the Summer Olympics?
The greatest sprinter of all time is ready to run his first marathon. Carl Lewis says he will celebrate his 50th birthday by running the open portion of the 2012 Houston Marathon.
•Fresh off an impressive silver-medal at the Vancouver Olympics, general manager Brian Burke will be back to lead another U.S. hockey team on international ice, this time at next month's world championships in Germany. David Poile, Burke's assistant in Vancouver, will join him in the same capacity, and Islander head coach Scott Gordon, one of Ron Wilson's assistant coaches at the Olympics, will serve as head coach. The U.S. will open its tournament against host Germany on May 7 and will finish off opening-round play against Denmark and Finland. The final is scheduled for May 23 in Cologne.
Make some more room in the Phinney family trophy case. Nineteen-year-old Taylor Phinney took home two medals at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Denmark this weekend. Phinney won the pursuit event and also captured a bronze in the omnium. His teammate Sarah Hammer won the women's pursuit earlier in the week, adding to the golds she won in 2006 and 2007.
Ever since he was a child, Jasmin Bambur dreamed of going to the Olympics. In college, he played competitive handball and was close to making the national team that would take him to the big games.
• Not only will they be compared for their ability to host Olympic Games and to make tea, but Beijing and London will go head-to-head for the right to stage the IAAF world championships in Track & Field for 2015. If Beijing wins, the championships will be held at the acclaimed Birds' Nest stadium that hosted track at the 2008 Games. If London wins, the events would be held at the Olympic Stadium being built for the 2012 Olympics.
Reports from this week's Game Developers Conference make one thing clear: Games on mobile phones are not just a niche category anymore.
It's been a while since I addressed your concerns, and judging by the contents of my mailbag, there's a lot on your mind especially after the trade deadline and Olympic break. So let's dig in...
updated: Thu Mar 04 2010 04:18:00
CNN's Mark McKay takes a look back at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Ah, Olympic tradition. Tears. Cheers. And the International Olympic Committee looking foolish.
With a wink of its eye, Canada brought to close the Winter Olympics by making fun of one the glitches that plagued the first week of the games.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- There's a reason we come, despite the nonsense. There's a reason we come to the Olympics still, every two years now, despite the fact that sometimes you get William Shatner or the odd, massive inflatable moose. What with all the overdone stagecraft and security hassles, the butt-covering parsing of words or the smugness of IOC officials who speak of an "Olympic movement" that never moves quite far enough when it comes to abuses committed under those oh-so-hallowed rings, it's easy to forget.
updated: Sun Feb 28 2010 02:49:00
Lindsey Vonn's Olympics come to an end. Alex Thomas wraps up Friday's competition.
American skier Bode Miller failed in his bid for an unprecedented medal haul but the United States will finish the 2010 Winter Olympics on Sunday with a record total after winning gold and silver on Saturday.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- All of Canada is holding its breath for the result of today's men's cross-country 50km mass start.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Here was a familiar scene: Bode Miller standing benignly on skis at the side of race course, poles dragging in the snow, a look of vague disappointment on his face. He is wearing a racing helmet and speed suit, but he is as still as the pine trees behind him and the plastic gates that line the mountainside, all dressed up with no place to go.
VANCOUVER, British COlumbia -- It isn't a role the United States is accustomed to playing, least of all at an Olympics. But the Americans' almost certain status as the top medal dog at the Vancouver Games is the result of its recurrent role here as successful underdog.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- As massive, wet snowflakes fell on the Creekside alpine racing stadium Friday afternoon, Lindsey Vonn worked an adoring crowd. Autographs here, photos there, always a smile. The hood was pulled up on her white, U.S. Ski team jacket and a hat was yanked down to the top of her eyebrows, but there was no mistaking who was beneath the down and wool. You cannot cover up stardom.
South Korea crowns its new queen after Thursday's competition
updated: Fri Feb 26 2010 08:59:00
South Koreans react to Kim Yu-Na's historic gold medal win in women's figure skating at the Olympics in Vancouver.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- After the brilliance of the short program, it was hard to imagine there wouldn't be a letdown. How could South Korea's Kim Yu-Na be perfect a second night in the face of the suffocating pressure of expectations? How could Japan's Mao Asada skate mistake-free again and push Kim with her amazing arsenal of triple axels. And, most poignantly, how could Canada's Joannie Rochette keep herself together in the free skating program just four days after her mother's sudden death after arriving in Vancouver to watch her compete?
Think back to those doodles you've inked in the margins of your notepad in school, at work or while listening on the phone.
Forgive Amber Johnson if she knocked you over while sprinting through the Olympic Village near Vancouver, Canada, last week.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- There was no stopping it. This big red wave came crashing down on the Russians Wednesday evening: One weapon after another, smart and tough, squeezing them for time and space. The big red wave kept rolling, playing less under pressure than with it -- welcoming it now -- pushed by the swell of pride from the thousands circling the ice and the arena and the city, too. Getzlaf, Boyle, Nash: The wave came at the Russians, pushed them under early, never allowed even the slightest bit of air.
On the 12-step road to recovery, they say the first task is to face and acknowledge reality. By that standard, Monday was a gilded day for Canada -- and I'm not talking primarily about the ice-dancing gold medal won by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
The Winter Olympics are basically a TV show, and thus NBC, which has become the New Jersey Nets of networks, actually won the Games' most important gold medal Feb. 17 -- podiumed as we, unfortunately, actually, say now -- when it whipped "American Idol" in the ratings.
Plus, Tears and cheers greet Canada's Joannie Rochette, who lost her mom Sunday
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- On Monday, British rugby player Terry Newton made sports history with the announcement that he had become the first athlete to test positive for human growth hormone. Newton's positive test (out of competition) came in November, and he has been banned from rugby for two years by the United Kingdom Anti-Doping Agency.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- No man has ever won four Alpine skiing medals at a single Olympics, but Bode Miller is a threat to make history today in the men's giant slalom. Medals will also be handed out in biathlon, Nordic combined, women's ski cross and the men's speedskating.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Question: Will American audiences tune in to a ladies figure skating competition in which an American is not in the hunt for the gold medal? Maybe not even make an appearance on the podium? It hasn't happened since 1964, but we may find out in the next few days, for this Olympic gold will be decided between a couple of longtime Asian rivals: South Korea and Japan.
South Korea's Lee Jung-Su confirmed his reputation as the top men's short-track speedskater at the 2010 Winter Olympics with his second gold medal on Saturday night, while American Apolo Anton Ohno snatched a place in the history books with a last-gasp bronze.
updated: Tue Feb 23 2010 04:26:00
Apolo Anton Ohno becomes the most decorated American Winter Olympian. Alex Thomas reports.
Unless you live in Whistler, you wouldn't know that a certain segment of the community is opposed to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Each morning here at 7:30, inside a compound at the International Broadcasting Center roughly the size of Belarus, NBC Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol gathers a small flock of his key lieutenants to discuss contingency plans and every possible scenario for that day's coverage. Along with everything else on the agenda for the tired executives and producers, Ebserol preaches one mantra:
Bronze medalist Scott Lago apologized to U.S. officials and volunteered to leave the Olympic Games after racy pictures of him, his medal and a female fan showed up on the Internet, a spokesman for the U.S. ski and snowboard team confirmed Saturday.
The 21-year-old Georgian luger who propelled to his death after sliding off the track during an Olympic practice run in Vancouver was laid to rest in his hometown Saturday.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Forget the NFL, and apologies to baseball:
U.S. snowboarder Louie Vito, a first-time Olympian, will be in checking in with SI.com's Cory McCartney throughout the Games to offer an inside view of the sights and sounds in Vancouver.
Living just miles from Florida's Daytona Beach, Ernie Peterson had never seen a hockey game in his life when he volunteered for his first Winter Olympics.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The joyride express for the U.S. had been cruising without one international incident during the Winter Games. Without Bode Miller bar-hopping, or bad blood between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick. Without an ounce of ego from the darling duo of Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White or the anti-American protests that had cast the U.S. athletes as villains in the Bush years. Not one ransacked dorm room in the Olympic village. Not one U.S. athlete ripping a rival.
VANCOUVER, B.C. - Holding off a couple defenders, Russia's No. 8 takes the puck and wheels quickly through the neutral zone. But in a manner unlike her male counterpart, a celebrated NHL superstar by the name of Alexander Ovechkin, Russian winger Iya Gavrilova then gets stripped before getting off a shot, and play bolts the other way faster than you can say spasiba.
The snowboarder says he didn't win a medal because his runs may have lacked "amplitude"
VANCOUVER -- In a backhanded slap to hockey fans and one of its own sports properties, NBC has offloaded the United States-Canada men's Olympic hockey match to MSNBC, insuring that all those NHL players the network features on many winter Sundays will be watched by an audience of cable subscribers and committed liberals.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Out of roughly 5,500 athletes in Vancouver, Evgeni Plushenko may be the most nerveless competitor. Tonight, the defending champion attempts to become the first man to win back-to-back Olympic golds in men's figure skating since Dick Button of the U.S. in 1948 and '52. "It gets more difficult each Olympics," Plushenko told reporters on Tuesday night, after placing first in the short program. "It's not because I'm getting older. It's that you have to prove yourself all over again. Gold, silver, bronze, fourth place ... I will take any result." That result will be the headline of the night -- and if it's anything but gold, the headline will be even bigger. Other medals will be awarded in men's and women's biathlon, women's halfpipe and women's speedskating.
Is there anything more frustrating for a sports fan than watching the Olympics? Every night I feel like I'm sitting down with a great book, and after I read the first 10 pages, I discover that pages 11 to 25 have been crossed out, and then I'm supposed to skip to page 102, and by the way, I inadvertently read the ending nine hours ago.
SI.com's writers will preview each event from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Here's David Epstein's look ahead to bobsled.
The skiing champ proves that her injured shin won't get in the way of her dreams
Eight months before the Vancouver Games, Lindsey Vonn skis the Olympic downhill in her mind. She is in a subterranean workout room at the Red Bull soccer club's training center in Salzburg, Austria, balanced with each foot on a nylon slack line suspended three feet off the pebbled orange rubber floor. She is crouched in an aerodynamic tuck, her hands thrust out in front of her chin. Trainer Oliver Saringer speaks gently into her right ear: You're on the downhill course at Whistler .... Vonn closes her eyes and begins shifting her weight rhythmically from one foot to the other as if executing high-speed turns on a Canadian mountainside more than 5,000 miles away.
WEST VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The night before the biggest day of his life, Scotty Lago tweeted out to his thousands of tweeps that he was going to bed and saying his prayers. Because that's what you do when you're headed down a massive halfpipe on the world's biggest stage, with not only your dreams, but the dreams of two of your best friends, riding on that board with you.
Shani Davis astonished no one with the first of what's likely to be two gold medals at these Olympics, which he claimed with a blistering final lap in Wednesday's 1,000 meters.
Mark the day February 17, 2010 in an Olympic history book. Then hold it up as a benchmark for future days, because it may well have been the single greatest day the U.S. Olympic team has ever had at a Winter Olympics. No, there was no Miracle on Ice, and Eric Heiden didn't win a jillion gold medals, but here is the case: Never before has a U.S. team won six medals in a single day at the Winter Games. No other country has ever won more than six. At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, the last time a Winter Games took place in Canada, the United States won six medals over the duration of the entire Olympics.
I want to be careful how I say this, lest I come off as an arrogant American casting stones from a house of crystal. For the fact is, the U.S. has staged two of the least satisfying Olympics ever: The 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, a festival of tastelessness that had all the atmosphere of spring break; and the 1980 Winter Games, which made "organized by Lake Placid" a gag line among international sports officials and press for years. But the list of glitches at these Olympics, already long, grew by two on Tuesday.
The goal became so overwhelming for Lindsey Vonn. It started on a tiny, little bump of a ski area in Minnesota when she was two years old. It got bigger when she traveled with her entire family to the mountains of Colorado when she was a teenager, and all around the globe in the major leagues of ski racing, where she became clean and fast in a way that precious few racers ever do.
A man who authorities said apparently suffers from mental illness managed to breach security during the Olympics opening ceremony and get close to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Canadian officials said Wednesday.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Ryan Miller's Olympic mask, at least in its original iteration, features a bellicose Uncle Sam with the five interlocking rings on a forearm so cartoonishly plump it would make Popeye blush; shamrocks; the Vancouver 2010 logo, a bald eagle with a bad attitude carrying a "Don't Tread On Me" ribbon; and so many other symbolic and fantastical things it is a small wonder the artist wasn't Hieronymus Bosch.
The Games were dedicated to a luger from the republic of Georgia who died in practice
Canada's Olympic home losing streak began July 18, 1976, a day after the opening ceremonies in Montreal, trudged depressingly through Calgary 1988 and now stands at 0-for-244 as an expectant nation awaits the lighting of the cauldron for the XXI Olympic Winter Games.
Bryan Adams's name also leaks out, but no mention of PEOPLE reader choices Shania Twain or Avril Lavigne
SI.com's writers will preview each event from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Here's Sarah Kwak's look ahead to the women's hockey tournament.
Remember the town in Vietnam that, they said, had to be destroyed in order to be saved? Something like that applies very well to figure skating, a sport with a judging system was so corrupt that changes had to be made. Unfortunately, instead of trusting that they could change the judges, they changed the whole system, and thereby destroyed the sport's popularity.
SI.com's writers will preview each event from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Here's Brian Cazeneuve's look ahead to ski jumping.
Switzerland's Didier Cuche could miss the Vancouver Winter Olympics after breaking his thumb in a World Cup giant slalom in Kranjska Gora on Friday.
Olympic downhill silver medallist Martina Schild will miss the Vancouver Winter Games after tearing knee ligaments in World Cup downhill training at St Moritz, Switzerland.
Evan Lysacek is right where he wants to be.
All Olympic eyes will be on Whistler Blackcomb next year as it hosts the 2010 Winter Games' alpine skiing events. But those in the know will be heading to British Columbia's vast, snowy interior for its cool old-school mountain towns and the best powder and terrain in North America.
The torch for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was lit in a ceremony at the ancient Greek site of Olympia on Thursday, less than four months ahead of the games' opening ceremony.
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