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David Vonderhaar remembers the moment he first realized the potential of competitive gaming. Vonderhaar — the design director at Treyarch, the studio behind Call of Duty offshoot series Black Ops — had travelled to an event organized by MLG in Anaheim. It was a competitive tournament for the first Black Ops game, played on the PlayStation 3, and he was struck by how the players and organizers had set up…

Meldonium is available over-the-counter in Russia and in other Eastern European nations. (REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/Files) Russian athletes’ systemic use of the banned performance-enhancer meldonium came into sharper focus this week, when the country’s sports media outlets reported that Russia’s under-18 hockey team would be replaced by the under-17 team at the upcoming world championships after a number of the under-18 players reportedly tested positive for the drug, which was banned this…

A 24-point game from Kawhi Leonard led the San Antonio Spurs to an easy victory over the Indiana Pacers on the last Monday before Christmas, but this was not the biggest news of the day for the formidable NBA franchise. San Antonio’s local authorities bought a minor-league football stadium on 21 December last year and charged the Spurs’ parent company with the task of wooing Major League Soccer – and…

The BBC will send 455 staff to cover this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro – 40% down on the number it employed for London 2012. The BBC acknowledged that its staff numbers often attracted criticism and said its total deployment was one-fifth of the number being sent by US broadcaster NBC. The number of accredited staff is down on the 765 who covered the 2012 Games, and slightly…

1. It wasn’t the first attempt at reviving the Olympics. Even after the Romans snuffed out the classical Greek games in 393 A.D., the Olympic flame had continued to simmer. Informal Olympic festivals took place as early as the 1600s, and the 19th century brought a series of local revivals including the Jeux Olmpiques Scandinaves in Sweden and the Zappas Olympics in Greece. In England, meanwhile, a doctor named William…

A fast-moving fire Wednesday destroyed the wooden grandstand and clubhouse at Waseca’s baseball field, named after a legendary Minnesota baseball coach. Firefighters were called to Tink Larson Field around 8:11 p.m. Wednesday, but were unable to save the beloved ballpark that is a landmark in the community of 9,500 residents located on Hwy. 14 between Owatonna and Mankato. Waseca Fire Chief Gary Conrath lives a block away from the field…

Major League Baseball, like the rest of America, has its own version of a culture war. What is the right way to play the game? Should American-born players impose a more stoic tone to the game, with paeans to good sportsmanship and the occasional high-and-tight fastball to warn off recalcitrants? Or should the game open itself up to the exuberant style of Latino players, who celebrate their feats on the…

David Vonderhaar remembers the moment he first realized the potential of competitive gaming. Vonderhaar — the design director at Treyarch, the studio behind Call of Duty offshoot series Black Ops — had travelled to an event organized by MLG in Anaheim. It was a competitive tournament for the first Black Ops game, played on the PlayStation 3, and he was struck by how the players and organizers had set up…

A few months ago, Blizzard launched a closed beta for its upcoming shooter Overwatch—and I’ve been engrossed in the PC version ever since. For all its faults—and there are many faults—it’s hard not be impressed with not just how much fun Overwatch is, but how Blizzard’s managed to successfully combine a solid first-person shooter along the same lines as Team Fortress 2 with the mechanics of a modern MOBA (Multiplayer…

A recent scandal involving chocolate milk, football concussions and a news release based on an industry-funded medical study that didn’t go through the peer-review process, has rocked the University of Maryland in recent months. University officials last week agreed to return more than $200,000 from a chocolate milk manufacturer in western Maryland — Fifth Quarter Fresh — which funded a study conducted by university researchers that concluded drinking chocolate milk…

BASEBALL SAN DIEGO — Japanese pitcher Kenta Maeda homered in the second at-bat of his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers and beat the Padres 7-0, making San Diego the first team in major league history to be shut out in its first three games. There wasn’t anything for the Padres to celebrate. They were outscored 25-0 in the opening three games by their biggest rivals and set…

Cormac Byrne Twitter Email Published 07/04/2016 | 12:56 0 Comments Share Facebook Twitter Google Email Conor McGregor. Photo: Getty Images The Irish Sports Council has conducted testing on Irish UFC fighters despite not recognising Mixed Martial Arts as a sport. MMA does not receive any government fundung because it is not recognised by the Irish Sports Council. That stance may be about to change after the Council revealed in its…

Officials at the University of California, Santa Cruz said Tuesday they’ll let students help decide whether to keep or scrap the school’s NCAA sports programs, which could mean less work for its beloved mascot: the banana slug. “Our intercollegiate athletics program is at a crossroads. Over the last several years, the campus has had to make hard choices about how to spend our limited resources,” university spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason told Fox News….

Fantasy football, and every other form of fantasy sports, amounts to illegal gambling in Tennessee, according to a new opinion from the Tennessee Attorney General.(Photo: Getty Images / iStockphoto) Any fantasy sports contest amounts to “illegal gambling” in Tennessee, argues state Attorney General Herbert Slatery in a new opinion released Wednesday. The sweeping opinion covers all fantasy sports, the massive industry where contestants choose individual players from professional sports teams to compose…

Wolfsburg are competing in their first Champions League quarter-final Wolfsburg stunned an out-of-sorts Real Madrid by comfortably beating the Spanish team in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie. The hosts were awarded a controversial penalty when Casemiro was deemed to have fouled Andre Schurrle, and Ricardo Rodriguez converted from the spot. Real were poor defensively and a rapid attack ended with Bruno Henrique setting up Max Arnold…

I respect and enjoy women’s sports – particularly women’s basketball and women’s soccer. Still in the last week, two storylines involving those sports have made me feel chauvinistic because I don’t support the premise of them. Last Friday, five members of the United States Women’s National Team filed a wage discrimination lawsuit against the…

6 April 2016 – Sport has an essential role to play in supporting the achievement of the post-2015 development goals, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as he observed the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. “Sport is a unique and powerful tool for promoting dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of every member of the human family,” he said in an…

The IIHF World U18 Championships begin in Grand Forks, N.D., next week, and the Russian team was set to fly out tomorrow. Today it was revealed that the head coach has been fired and the entire roster will be replaced because too many players tested positive for the recently banned substance Meldonium. The doping aspect was first reported by AllHockey.ru, which says the under-18 roster is expected to be replaced…

“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “Those players back in the day, when they wore the Indian head jersey, they wore it with pride. I wear it with pride. I fly my flag with pride. I show respect for my team, and like I said, it’s an addiction.” Boger is one of many who are traveling, tuning in and turning their attention Thursday to Tampa as the UND men’s hockey…

I respect and enjoy women’s sports – particularly women’s basketball and women’s soccer. Still in the last week, two storylines involving those sports have made me feel chauvinistic because I don’t support the premise of them. Last Friday, five members of the United States Women’s National Team filed a wage discrimination lawsuit against the…