International Olympic Committee

World athletics chief Sebastian Coe, multi-millionaire and Olympic newcomer Johan Eliasch and Zimbabwe's Sports Minister Kirsty Coventry are among seven candidates for next year's International Olympic Committee presidency election, the IOC said on Monday.

It took countless events and many years for the Olympic officials to decide to honor the birthplace of the Games, Greece.

Officials in Ancient Olympia are protesting the decision to hold the next International Olympic Committee session in a neighboring region of the Peloponnese, rather than at the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

Setting out to prove that topping Paris isn't mission impossible, Los Angeles rolled out a skydiving Tom Cruise, Grammy winner Billie Eilish and other stars on Sunday as it took over Olympic hosting duties from the French capital, which closed out its 2024 Games just as they started - with joy and panache.

Hollywood star Tom Cruise abseiled from the roof of the Stade de France as Paris said farewell on Sunday to an Olympics hailed as one of the most successful in history.

Cruise descended on a wire in front of 71,500 spectators, grabbed the Olympic flag and jumped on a motorbike, to the delight of athletes and fans.

Paris handed over the Olympic flag to the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, setting the stage for the next Games in 2028 during a closing ceremony.

It's as if we were building castles in the sand. Massive sports facilities - permanent rather than temporary - many of them poorly located, were left to deteriorate unused after the Athens Olympics. We retained unnecessary stadiums, some serving moribund federations with nominal clubs, while successive governments failed to capitalize on the 2004 vision in the years that followed.

Greek pole vaulter Eleni-Klaoudia Polak was disqualified from the Olympics and handed a provisional suspension at the Paris Games after she tested positive for banned substances, the IOC said on Wednesday.

The Greek Olympic Committee said on Tuesday that one member of its team was expelled from the athletes' village but her identity was previously unknown.

The Goddess Nike at the Panathenaic Stadium with the Parthenon in the Background: The Design of the Olympic Medal Born from the Imagination of Creator Elena Votsi

The Olympic medal, designed by Elena Votsi for the 2004 Olympic Games, was decided by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consistently feature one of its sides for many years to come.

The process is identical to the first case (where the athlete was informed before the team traveled to Paris) with the difference that the athlete who tested positive has competed but is no longer participating in the Games.