French biathlon star Julia Simon gets suspended ban, can compete at Winter Olympics

Biathlon star Julia Simon will be allowed to compete at next year's Winter Olympics after receiving a six-month ban, including five months suspended, for stealing money from a teammate, the French ski federation (FFS) said Thursday.

The suspension came after Simon was found guilty of theft and credit card fraud by a French court last month and handed a three-month suspended prison sentence.

The court ruling had left a question mark over her participation at the Olympics in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo. The ski federation's disciplinary commission decided to suspend most of her sporting ban, allowing her to return to competition in time for the Games, which begin Feb. 6.

Simon was also handed a 30,000 euros ($34,600) fine, with 15,000 euros suspended. The amount must be paid within six months to the federation and will be used to support the training of young biathletes.

Ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline 2026 Winter Olympics closing ceremony in Verona

VERONA, Italy (AP) — Internationally acclaimed ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics closing ceremony, titled “Beauty in Motion,” in Verona’s ancient Roman amphitheater, one of the world’s oldest, organizers announced Thursday.

The Feb. 22 closing event will pay homage to the city of Verona — which is a UNESCO world heritage site — and the Arena’s role as the venue for a famous summer opera festival, while celebrating athletic excellence and addressing climate change, said Alfredo Accatino, artistic director for the closing ceremony.

“If the climate continues to change, there won’t be Winter Olympics anymore,’’ Accatino lamented.

The central stage within the nearly 2,000-year-old Arena will be shaped like a waterdrop, symbolically uniting the mountain venues with the fertile Po River Valley, where Milan and Verona are located, and the Venetian lagoon, Accatino said.

No core funding increase in budget keeps sport “bleeding to death” says freestyle CEO

The head of Freestyle Canada says he understands that this week's federal budget was designed to navigate the country's choppy economic waters.

But Peter Judge says the medal hauls that Canadians have seen from their teams at Olympic and Paralympic Games are on borrowed time without an increase in core funding for national sports organizations.

"To be blunt, you know, the sports sector is just slowly bleeding to death," Judge said Wednesday. 

"I'm not being alarmist here. This is shared in the community. Sooner or later, there will be a drop off the cliff."

Charles Coste, world’s oldest living Olympian and cycling champion, dies at 101

PARIS (AP) — Charles Coste, the world's oldest living Olympian and a cycling champion, has died. He was 101.

The French presidency said in a statement on Tuesday that Coste died last Thursday.

Coste won the team pursuit gold medal at the 1948 Olympic Games in London at the famed Herne Hill velodrome. He returned to the spotlight last year as the second-to-last bearer of the Olympic flame for the 2024 Paris Games.

Emmanuel Macron’s office said Coste was “until his final breath, the tireless messenger of a certain idea of sport.”

Langelaar’s Olympic quest receives boost from the Jets

Tyson Langelaar is all about speed. Now, the 26-year-old long-track speed skater has received a significant boost from his hometown Winnipeg Jets in his quest to reach the 2026 Winter Olympics.

WADA launches ‘Operation Puncture’ to investigate leak about Chinese swimmers’ doping tests

LONDON (AP) — The World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed on Thursday it is looking into a leak about an investigation that resulted in the agency clearing 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned heart medication before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The agency has defended its decision to clear the swimmers of doping. It said it had agreed with Chinese anti-doping authorities who found the swimmers’ samples were contaminated.

The existence of the investigation by China and WADA had been kept under wraps before the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on it last year.

ARD reported Wednesday that the agency was looking for the person who tipped off the news media about the investigation. The move is unusual because WADA encourages and relies on whistleblowers to root out doping.

IOC and Saudi Arabia cancel their 12-year deal to host video gaming Esports Olympics in Riyadh

GENEVA (AP) — The IOC and Saudi Arabia have canceled their 12-year deal to host the video gaming Esports Olympics in Riyadh in a rare setback for a sports project backed by the oil-rich kingdom.

The International Olympic Committee said on Thursday they “mutually agreed that they will end their cooperation on the Olympic Esports Games.”

An official Olympic event shaped as a signature asset in the Saudi drive to acquire and develop sports as part of the Vision 2030 modernization program driven by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is known to be a video gaming fan.

“At the same time, both parties are committed to pursuing their own esports ambitions on separate paths,” the Olympic body said, announcing a reset of a major project seven months into the presidency of Kirsty Coventry.

100 days from the Olympics, federal funding question looms over Canadian athletes

Canadian athletes enter the home stretch of preparation for the 2026 Winter Games that start in 100 days, but they'll soon learn whether the organizations that support them can continue to do so.

With the federal budget to be tabled Tuesday, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees have asked Ottawa for a $144-million increase in core funding, which they say hasn’t increased in two decades. 

"The impact of the lack of funding keeps mounting," Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive officer David Shoemaker said Wednesday. "It shifts the burden increasingly to athletes."

NSOs count on core funding to pay for operations, athletes, coaches and support staff. Freestyle Canada's CEO Peter Judge has called it the "blood in the veins" of his organization.

Better than gold? $100,000 for US athletes who make the Winter Olympics and Paralympics

NEW YORK (AP) — The stakes for all these U.S. skiers, skaters, snowboarders and sliders over the next 100 days could not be more clear.

A chance for Olympic glory.

A chance to compete for a gold medal.

And this year, for the first time, a chance to make $100,000.

Milan-Cortina reaches 100-day countdown with ice hockey arena still under construction

MILAN (AP) — With 100 days to go until the start of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, preparations are going right down to the wire.

The ice hockey arena that is set to welcome back NHL players to the Olympics is still not ready and won’t be tested until less than a month before the first puck is dropped at the 2026 Games.

“There are some things that we are paying more attention to, monitoring them and then there are others that are absolutely completely ready,” Milan-Cortina organizing committee president Giovanni Malagò told journalists outside an event to celebrate the 100-day countdown on Wednesday.

“Being completely honest I would say that these 100 days are necessary, we need them but I don’t think that’s any different than any other big event, you always see people working even hours before the start to ensure it meets expectations.”

From Milan to Cortina, a glance at the 2026 Winter Olympics venues

MILAN (AP) — With 100 days to go, northern Italy is gearing up to host the Milan-Cortina Olympics, the most spread-out Winter Games in history.

The two main clusters of the Games are Milan — the beating heart of Italy’s industrial north — and Cortina d’Ampezzo, an upscale winter resort in the Dolomites mountain range. Visitors should expect a full day of travel between the two locations, which are more than 400 kilometers (250) miles apart by road.

In addition, athletes will compete in three other mountain clusters, while the closing ceremony will be held in Verona, the largest city in the northeastern Veneto region.

The games will mostly make use of existing infrastructure, though some venues are being renovated or built from scratch. Here’s a closer look at the venues:

How climate change is changing the way athletes train ahead of the Winter Olympics

A live camera pans in every direction along the Rettenbach glacier in Soelden, Austria — a way to show the snow status at the resort in the Alps. Instead of blankets of snow everywhere leading into a season-opening World Cup ski race, the images reflected a light dusting — thanks to a recent snowfall — over the rocks, rubble and dirt.

The notable exception was the majestic ribbon of mainly manufactured snow in place for the race last weekend. Granted, it’s early in the season in Soelden. But this sort of minimal-snow scene is playing out all over the planet. The current images at Copper Mountain in Colorado, which is hosting a series of races next month, show only a light coating of snow.

As Earth warms at a record rate, winters are shorter and milder and there is less snow globally, creating clear challenges for winter sports that depend on cold, snowy conditions. With 100 days until the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games begin, many athletes say climate change is shaping their training and perhaps even the future of their sport.

As snowboarder Bea Kim is focused on earning a spot to represent Team USA at the Winter Olympics, she's also thinking about how long she will be able to do what she loves.

Gender testing on tap for female skiers, snowboarders with 100 days to Olympics

NEW YORK (AP) — With 100 days to go until the Winter Olympics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has begun the complicated and expensive task of identifying female skiers and snowboarders who need to take gender tests before they arrive in Italy.

The sport's international federation adopted a rule last month requiring athletes who want to compete in women's events to take what's called an SRY gene test, which identifies the Y chromosome found in males. It's the same test that track and boxing federations adopted earlier in the year.

The USOPC's chief medical officer, Jonathan Finnoff, said Tuesday the experience in getting athletes from those sports tested in a short window will make this project run more smoothly.

“Our role in that was helping identify labs and options for the athletes to be able to get that testing,” Finnoff said. “Based on that experience and knowing some other international federations would be following suit, figuring out how to make this a seamless process” was the USOPC's mission.

Lindsey Vonn says she has ‘nothing to prove’ as she prepares to return to the Olympics

NEW YORK (AP) — Lindsey Vonn feels like she has “nothing to prove” in her bid to return to the Olympics at the age of 41, more than two decades since her first.

The American ski great with medals in multiple disciplines said Tuesday she’s not worried about tarnishing her legacy after coming out of retirement several years after she last competed.

“I don't think anyone remembers Michael Jordan’s comeback,” Vonn said at the Team USA Olympic Media Summit ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games. “I don’t think that tarnished his legacy at all. ... I’ve already succeeded. I’ve already won.”

A partial knee replacement in the spring of 2024 paved the way for her return to racing with Vonn setting her sights on skiing in one of her favorite places in Cortina, where she got on the podium at a World Cup event for the first time and broke the Women's World Cup wins record. She called it the perfect way to end her career.