Yahoo! Sports - Olympics News

A court in Bulgaria has sentenced world ice-dancing champion Maxim Staviski to 2 1/2 years in prison for a fatal drunk driving accident. The court on Monday overturned an earlier suspended sentence for the same term. Staviski was found guilty of crashing his car into an oncoming vehicle in August 2007.

John Napier and Bree Schaaf won the U.S. National Bobsled Championships at Mount Van Hoevenberg on Sunday and qualified for the World Championships. Napier, of Schenectady, N.Y., and brakeman Cory Butner of Yucaipa, Calif., won in 3 minutes, 45.87 seconds in the four-heat race. They held off Mike Kohn of Chantilly, Va., and brakeman Jacob Miller of Waterford, Va., by 0.30 seconds.

Two-time Olympic champion Armin Zoeggler of Italy won a luge race on his birthday Sunday to extend his overall lead in the World Cup standings. Zoeggler finished in 1 minute, 34.458 seconds, 0.36 seconds ahead of David Moeller of Germany. Felix Loch, also of Germany, was third. "This was the best present I could make myself," said Zoeggler, a five-time world champion who turned 35.

Bulgarian sprinter Tezdzhan Naimova has been banned for two years for manipulating a doping sample while middle-distance runners Vanya Netova and Raya Stoynova received two-year bans for doping.

Jamaica's triple Olympic champion Usain Bolt believes he can take the 100 metres world record down to 9.58 seconds and go below 19 seconds in the 200 metres.

Thousands of airline passengers stranded. Roads impassable because of snow. Power failures by the dozen. The last two weeks have been a winter nightmare for Vancouver -- huge dumps of snow followed by rain, heavy slush and flooding. All over the city, people are griping about the toll storm after storm has taken on their holiday season.

Beijing Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hookerleads a team of nine Australian athletes pre-selected for next year's world championships in Berlin, Athletics Australia said on Monday.

The creator of a dance step made famous by champion sprinter Usain Bolt at the Olympics has been slain in Jamaica. Police say David Alexander Smith was shot to death at a Kingston nightclub early Friday. The motive was not disclosed and no arrests have been made. The 36-year-old Smith was a dancer best known as the creator of the Gully Creeper.

The high-tech swimming suits worn when world records were lowered more than 100 times this year could be affecting the credibility of the performances, the coach of the world's fastest male and female swimmers has said.

Four months after successfully holding the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China is mulling a bid to host the 2018 Winter Games in the frigid northern city of Harbin, state media said on Thursday, quoting a government official.

Michael Phelps picked up two more awards Monday when The Associated Press named him male athlete of the year and selected his eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics as the top sports story of the year. The AP's members made Phelps a runaway selection for top male athlete. Only Olympic sprinting sensation Usain Bolt and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning got more than a single vote.

Norwegian rider Tony Andre Hansen was stripped of his Olympic bronze medal in team jumping Monday after his horse tested positive for a banned drug at the Beijing Games. Hansen was disqualified by the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) and banned from the sport for 4 1/2 months. The 29-year-old Hansen was the best performer on a four-rider Norway team that won bronze under a scoring system...

Despite being a year from hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, Canada's Whistler ski resort is experiencing the same drop in business that has hurt ski resorts elsewhere. Part of it is the lack of snow so far, but officials and businesses in Whistler are also pointing to the global economic downturn. Most cities experience a boom ahead of the Olympics, but Whistler is showing it isn't immune to the...

Former British Olympic Association chief executive Simon Clegg is leaving the organization. Clegg, who worked on London's successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics and was Britain's team chief at the Beijing Games, said Monday he was quitting following the structural changes at the BOA. Clegg, who had been chief executive since 1997, was replaced in that role last month by Andy Hunt.

Austria won a men's biathlon World Cup relay for the first time in seven years Sunday, while Russia won its second straight women's race. The team of Daniel Mesotitsch, Friedrich Pinter, Tobias Eberhard and Christoph Sumann missed five targets but avoided penalty laps to finish the 7.5-kilometer relay in 1 hour, 21 minutes, 23.1 seconds, Austria's first victory since winning in Pokljuka, Slovenia,...

The International Olympic Committee could lose nearly $5 million in investments tied to the Wall Street financier accused in a $50 billion financial scam. IOC finance commission chairman Richard Carrion told The Associated Press the Olympic body has about $4.8 million at risk in the alleged Ponzi scheme by Bernard Madoff.

Lars Berger led a Norwegian 1-2 finish at a 10-kilometer sprint event Saturday for his first biathlon World Cup victory in four years. Berger shot clear and finished in 25 minutes, 23.1 seconds to beat Alexander Os by 37.9 seconds. Os missed one target. Dmitri Yaroshenko of Russia took third, shooting flawlessly and finishing 39.8 seconds behind Berger.

FIFA gave the green light on Saturday for a British football team at the 2012 London Olympics, saying it would not have any effect on the individual status of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Tokyo's bid committee has finalized its venue plans for the 2016 Olympics, promising a compact games of tightly grouped venues. Among the plans that were announced by the bid committee on Thursday was a marathon course that will begin at National Stadium -- the main stadium for the 1964 Olympics -- and finish at the new 2016 Olympic Stadium on Tokyo's waterfront.

Gather a roomful of anti-doping experts, administrators, academics and athletes alike -- something a conservative think tank did Thursday -- and there is no consensus as to whether gene doping, thought by some to be the next frontier in Olympic cheating, is at hand. Indeed, there isn't even consensus on whether it would be a bad thing.