CNN's Don Lemon and Azadeh Ansari go beyond the headlines into female athlete participation in the 2012 London Olympics.
Bahiya Al-Hamad is a 19-year-old college student and air-rifle shooter who is about to make history for her country.
Olympic gymnastics hopeful Jennifer Pinches talks to CNN about her inspiration and preparation.
Not every athlete gets to train with their heroes, but Jennifer Pinches is lucky enough to be friends with one of hers.
British defense officials consider surface-to-air missiles as part of security during the London Olympics.
The British Ministry of Defence might place surface-to-air missiles on a water tower in a densely populated London neighborhood as part of security for the Olympic Games this summer, a ministry official said Sunday.
British defense officials say they may deploy missiles from residential rooftops at the Olympics. Atika Shubert reports.
The British Olympic Association (BOA) has lost a court ruling that could lead to several high-profile athletes -- previously banned for doping offenses -- competing at London 2012.
London 2012 organizers could argue that one of the many attractions of holding the Olympics in the British capital is the number of great restaurants on offer for visitors harboring a hunger for tasty morsels.
Danesfield House Head Chef, Adam Simmonds cooks a meal fit for Olympic athletes.
Canadian wheelchair rugby player Garett Hickling talks to CNN about the accident that changed his life.
She was remembered in her last Olympics 16 years ago -- a near lifetime in an athlete's career -- as a diminutive figure whose size belied her big ambitions and ability to win Olympic gold.
Olympic commentator Ed Hula discusses how London is preparing to host the 2012 Summer Olympics.
CNN's Jim Boulden talks with Stephen Daldry, who's in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies at the London Games.
Seven years after upsetting favorite Paris to win the right to host the 2012 Olympics, London is in the final straight of a long and often bumpy run-up to stage the sporting showpiece.
CNN's Matthew Chance looks at the long term economic impact of the London Olympics for the United Kingdom.
CNN's Ben Wyatt visits the GlaxoSmithKline laboratory to learn more about dope screening ahead of the Olympic Games.
Veronica Campbell-Brown knows a thing or two about upsetting the odds.
For Rwanda's national cycling team, survivors of its genocide, cycling is proving to have an unlikely healing power. Eighteen years after the genocide of Tutsis that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives in all, Team Rwanda is now gaining international recognition, and one member will compete at this year's summer Olympics.
Syrian athletes will be allowed to attend this summer's London Olympics but officials from the war-torn country will not be welcome, says UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
The United States men's Olympic soccer team had its hopes dashed Monday night after a dramatic late goal killed its chances of going to London.
Yohan Blake is the 100-meter World Champion, but can he catch Usain Bolt at the 2012 Olympics?
David Beckham is determined to go for gold with the Great Britain football team at the 2012 Olympics, despite being twice the age of some of his potential teammates.
We're just four months away from the London Olympics and the city is nearly ready to greet thousands of athletes and millions of visitors.
Equestrian champion Ingrid Klimke could ride a horse before she could walk, such is the fondness her family holds for the animals.
German Olympic champion equestrian rider Ingrid Klimke talks to CNN about her Beijing gold and London 2012.
The bill for staging the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics is set to rise by nearly 20% to £11 billion ($17.2 billion) a UK government committee has warned.
CNN chats with English heptathlete Jessica Ennis ahead of the 2012 Olympics in London.
Former world champion Jessica Ennis is one of Great Britain's big medal hopes for the London 2012 Olympics.
Robbers broke into a museum in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympics, tied and gagged a museum guard, and fled with stolen artifacts, Greek authorities said Friday.
Friday is the six month mark before the Opening Ceremony for London 2012. Jim Boulden got a tour of the Olympic Park.
With 20 million extra trips on public transport expected during the London 2012 Summer Games, companies are experimenting with flexible working to keep employees off the roads and out of the tube, London's subway system.
Olympic security
updated: Thu Feb 09 2012 10:43:00
How will Britain maintain security when the Olympics arrives in London? CNN's Dan Rivers investigates.
Six months to the day before Opening Ceremonies, builders have handed the Olympic Village over to the London 2012 organizers.
British authorities said Monday they plan to borrow wireless spectrum from the Defense Ministry as part of a package of measures to meet the heavy wireless demand expected during this summer's Olympic and Paralympic Games.
With only 200 days to go until the 2012 Olympic Games in London, CNN's Dan Rivers reports from the Olympic Park.
CNN's Jim Boulden investigates the Olympic Games that have made and lost money.
Unwanted tickets for the 2012 Summer Olympics can be sold back starting Friday, organizers said Thursday.
London 2012 Olympic organizers said Wednesday they oversold thousands of tickets for the synchronized swimming events at this summer's Games.
1. The United States will not lead the medal table in London. China, which didn't fully compete in the Olympics until 1984, will conquer the overall medal standings for the first time, completing its rise into sports superpower status. The Chinese led the Beijing Games with 51 golds, but the U.S. had 110 total medals to the host nation's 100 to top the table for the fourth straight Olympics.
As 2011 comes to an end, it is time to look back and reflect on another remarkable sporting year.
1. Bolt disqualified. It was a bit like seeing Old Faithful oversleep or Big Ben lose track of time. At the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, in August, Jamaica's Usain Bolt, the Olympic champion and world's fastest man, false-started and watched the final of the men's 100 meters from the sidelines. In his absence, Bolt's 21-year-old teammate, Yohan Blake, won the race in 9.92 seconds (Blake would follow up a few weeks in Brussels by running the second-fastest 200 in history, .07 seconds behind Bolt's record of 19.19). But a sprint race without Bolt is really Christmas without Santa. His explosions out of the blocks are among the few athletic viewings that can leave spectators in awe. Instead, his mistake left the running world in a state of aw-shucks.
Ground-to-air missiles at the 2012 Olympic Games? It's not a new sport added to the London line-up, but proof that Britain's government is taking security seriously.
With Olympic berths available in some sports and athlete fields ranging from secondary to top shelf, the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, wrapped up last weekend, featuring athletes from the Americas competing in Olympic sports less than a year out from the London Games. Here are some of the highlights:
1. Jordyn Wieber will be NBC's "it" girl in 2012. Wieber, 16, exceeded considerable hype in her first year as a senior gymnast. She capped a 2011 all-around trifecta by edging Russian cofavorite Viktoria Komova, also 16, for the world championship, one of her three medals won this past week in Tokyo. Wieber had put everyone on notice in March, defeating 2010 world champion Aliya Mustafina at the American Cup, and in August, winning the U.S. title by the largest margin since the sport scrapped the perfect 10 in 2006.
Athletes suspended for doping cannot be barred from competing in the next Olympics if they have served their ban, the highest court in international sports ruled Thursday.
Legendary athlete Haile Gebrselassie has told CNN that he aims to be competitive at the 2012 London Olympic Games, despite being impressed by some of the younger runners coming through in long-distance events.
Rory McIlroy tells CNN's Don Riddell about his ambition to become the world's number one golfer.
The International Olympic Committee told CNN Friday that they are waiting on the result of an investigation by amateur boxing's world governing body into allegations that huge bribes were paid so Azerbaijan can win gold medals at the London 2012 Games.
A man born without functioning legs ran the 400 meters in 45.07 seconds on July 19, 2011, the fastest time recorded by an amputee. The ripple effects of this historic achievement may initiate a paradigm shift in how we view our bodies.
He might spend all of next summer fighting in Afghanistan after qualifying to fly Apache helicopters
Soccer superstar David Beckham has had a long and distinguished career, but he has one more burning ambition: to play for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games in his hometown London.
How do you top eight gold medals in a single Olympics? Don't ask Michael Phelps, because he doesn't plan to try.
It could have been the 15,000 participants, or maybe the $100 million price tag, or perhaps The Flying Man, the guy who lit the torch after completing his final lap of the Olympic Stadium track while suspended in midair. Whatever the cause, organizers of next summer's London Olympics must have felt gobsmacked by the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The Games are all about quadrennium-upon-quadrennium comparatives -- faster, stronger, higher and all that -- and in the Olympic event that could be called synchronized can-you-top-this, the Chinese retired the trophy.
July 27 marks the start of the final countdown for London's staging of the 2012 Olympic Games.
CNN attends the opening of the 2012 Olympic Velodrome, the first venue to be completed ahead of the Games in London.
Boasting 6,000 seats, a 360-degree glass viewing concourse and an elliptical race track which required 56 kilometers (35 miles) of surface timber from sustainably-sourced Siberian pine for its construction, the velodrome for the 2012 London Olympics has been unveiled as the pride of local organizers.
The schedule of events for the 2012 London Olympics was released on Tuesday as organizers stepped up the drive to encourage sports fans to sign up for tickets.
Hampton Court Palace will be the venue for the cycling time trial event at the London 2012 Olympic Games, it was announced on Wednesday.
Olympic ticket buyers won't be told how much or when money will be deducted from their accounts. Emily Reuben reports.
The torch relay for the 2012 London Olympics will be confined to the United Kingdom and possibly Ireland, it was confirmed when the route was announced on Wednesday.
LA Galaxy Midfielder David Beckham tells CNN's Pedro Pinto he's looking forward to the Olympics in London in 2012.
As one of the world's most famous sportsmen, David Beckham is used to being center stage. But next year the English soccer star is looking forward to being "a fan" in what he tells CNN will be "one of the best, if not the best Olympics of all time."
A look at the work being done to restore, rejuvenate and clean east London's industrial areas for the 2012 Olympic games.
What comes next for the U.S. women's soccer team? That's the question I'm hearing from several precincts after the dramatic end to the Women's World Cup on Sunday. The short answer is this: the 2012 Olympics come next. Women's soccer has a strange schedule, since its two main events (the World Cup and Olympics) take place in consecutive years, followed by two years in which women's soccer largely drops off the radar.
The International Olympic Committee will not give any tickets to Libya's Olympic Committee "until the current situation becomes clearer," it said Wednesday.
People who were disappointed that their effort to buy tickets to the 2012 London Olympic Games was apparently unsuccessful should not despair. They could just be the victims of an electronic glitch.
More than 1.8 million people have tried to buy over 20 million tickets for the London 2012 Olympics, organizers said Wednesday.
Demand for tickets for the 2012 Olympics in London hit fever pitch ahead of Tuesday's deadline, according to organizers.
The latest sponsor announced for the London 2012 Olympic Games is the mining group Rio Tinto, which will provide the metal for all 4,700 medals, organizers announced Wednesday.
Double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius has moved a step closer to realizing his dream of participating in the Olympics after running the 'B' standard qualifying time for next year's Games in London.
Tickets went on sale for the 2012 London Olympics on Tuesday, but some sports fans were unable to process their applications due to problems with the online payment system.
Tickets finally go on sale Tuesday for the 2012 Olympics, with 500 days till the world gathers in London for the opening ceremony on July 27. Full details can be found on the London 2012 website.
The race for London 2012 tickets will begin on Tuesday in London as 6.6 million seats go up for grabs a full 500 days before the Olympics begin.
The stadium at the heart of the 2012 London Olympics is set to be transformed into a football ground once the Games have finished, after English Premier League side West Ham were named as the preferred future residents of the venue on Friday.
In another universe, the local grocery store might have a Mariel Zagunis cereal box on the front shelf, next door to a Mariel line of athletic wear or a Zagunis video game with its own parry-riposte throttle. But Zagunis may have to be content with merely being the best in the world today at what she does and the most successful U.S. athlete in the history of her sport, one that predates most other sports in this country. When she defended her world fencing championship in Paris this month, Zagunis floated into a new stratosphere.
The punishment for U.S. quarter-miler LaShawn Merritt has been set at 21 months after the two-time Olympic champ tested positive three times for Dehydroepiandrosterone, a drug contained in a product he said he took to improve his sex life. Though Merritt could be eligible to return before the London Games, since his suspension was retroactive to October 2009, an IOC rule prohibits him as a banned athlete from actually taking part in the next Olympics. Merritt won gold at the Beijing Olympics in both the 400 meters and the 4x400-meter relay. He also won golds in both events at the world championships in Berlin last summer.
It was an impossible question, one USA Basketball director Jerry Colangelo could never properly answer: Which was more satisfying -- the Olympic gold medal earned through the blood, sweat and tears shed during a three-year rebuilding process; or the World Championship gold, claimed by a young, upstart team that seemed an unlikely group to end America's 16-year drought in the event?
The United States reaffirmed its place atop the basketball food chain, claiming its first gold medal at the FIBA World Championships since 1994 and officially qualifying for the 2012 Olympics with a 81-64 win over Turkey.
Put on a blindfold, kick a ball, and you could win a $310 Olympic shopping spree.
Avoid saying "thank you" to a Chinese compliment, and don't ask a Brazilian personal questions.
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Two women stood 8 feet apart Friday night, conducting interviews in a small room beneath the concrete grandstand at Drake Stadium. Each had just won a title at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. There the resemblance seemed to end abruptly.
More than a million people have registered their interest in tickets for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games since sign up began online a month ago, organizers have revealed.
Athletes competing at the 2012 Olympic Summer Games will face more scrutiny about banned substances after organizers said they will be carrying out more doping tests than in any previous Olympics.
Saturday marks 1,000 days until the London 2012 Olympic Games, and officials promise the event is on track and on budget.
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