Sport

Rio is welcoming the world to the Summer Olympics — and after months of negative news and setbacks, organizers for these games on Friday finally got to do what the city’s famous for: Throw a party, in the form of an hours-long Opening Ceremony. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil are headlining a show that’s heavy on samba drums and dancing, highlighting Brazil’s history and heritage. And the Parade of Nations…

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RIO de JANEIRO – A couple of days after Michael Phelps emphatically retired in London, I was talking with Mel Stewart, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist in the 200m butterfly and the founder of the website SwimSwam. He said something then that only now makes sense. At that moment, Phelps’ career did not only seem over… it seemed complete. The writer John Updike, in his famous story about baseball legend…

Three weeks of Olympic competition begin tomorrow in Rio, and there has never been more ways to tune in. That’s a good thing, because NBC will be broadcasting 6,755 hours of the games. It all starts with the opening ceremony tonight — which, mind you, is going to be broadcast on a tape delay (but also in HDR!). No matter whether you’re a cable subscriber, a cord-cutter, or prefer to follow…

“She has a chance.” That was the best the commentators at the 2012 Olympics could muster for the introduction of 15-year-old Katie Ledecky, who entered the finals of the 800-meter freestyle event as a virtual unknown. She had the third-fastest time in qualifying, but had no track record and no other medals in a year when the vaunted United States swim team ultimately won 31. Eight minutes, 15 seconds later,…

In the late 19th century, the French intellectual Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics, which had lapsed in the fourth century when the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned “pagan cults.” Coubertin’s intention was to rotate the competition among European and American cities, in an effort to promote “peace” and an “international” spirit. Initially, things didn’t go to plan. As the first modern Olympic Games wound down in Athens in 1896, King…

The Olympics are more than just the world’s premiere sporting event—they’re big, big media business. Just a few years ago, the closing ceremonies at the London 2012 Olympics attracted a staggering 900 million viewers, with more than 219.4 million Americans tuning into the games at one point or another. But what if you want to watch the Olympics without paying for cable television? There are options. Although NBC is offering…

RIO de JANEIRO – A couple of days after Michael Phelps emphatically retired in London, I was talking with Mel Stewart, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist in the 200m butterfly and the founder of the website SwimSwam. He said something then that only now makes sense. At that moment, Phelps’ career did not only seem over… it seemed complete. The writer John Updike, in his famous story about baseball legend…

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Athletes marching in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio today will be joined by the first refugee team ever to compete in the Olympics. The 10 athletes on the refugee team will march immediately before participants from Brazil, the 2016 Olympics host country. The refugee athletes will not walk under the flag of their nations or march to the sound of their own national anthems –- instead…

The Olympics bring out the most casual of sports fans, for a variety of reasons. Some of those fans are blatantly enthralled by the storylines that network television will beat into viewers’ heads. (Underdog? History-making? A comeback for the ages? We’re bringing it to you every two years, snow or sunshine!) Others are actually thrilled to see the incredible athletic achievements in sports that rarely earn exposure in an online…

Play Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed autoplay autoplay U.S. intelligence has assigned more than 1,000 spies to Olympic security as part of a highly classified effort to protect the Rio 2016 Summer Games and American athletes and staff, NBC News has learned. Hundreds of analysts, law enforcement and special operations personnel are already on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, according to an exclusive NBC News review of a highly…

The Olympics are more than just the world’s premiere sporting event—they’re big, big media business. Just a few years ago, the closing ceremonies at the London 2012 Olympics attracted a staggering 900 million viewers, with more than 219.4 million Americans tuning into the games at one point or another. But what if you want to watch the Olympics without paying for cable television? There are options. Although NBC is offering…

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There have been few moments in my life as memorable as competing in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The chance to represent my country was a distinct honor, as was being part of the community of the Olympics — an event with the rare power to unite the world in the common spirit of competition and athletic excellence. The attention, hopes and energies of the global community uniquely fall…

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Play Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed autoplay autoplay U.S. intelligence has assigned more than 1,000 spies to Olympic security as part of a highly classified effort to protect the Rio 2016 Summer Games and American athletes and staff, NBC News has learned. Hundreds of analysts, law enforcement and special operations personnel are already on the ground in Rio de Janeiro, according to an exclusive NBC News review of a highly…

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x Embed x Share SI.com’s Richard Deitsch spoke with Bob Costas about when the NBC fixture might call it quits as primetime Olympic host. Time_Sports Bob Costas says of his 11th Olympics, “I guess if I was a baseball player, they’d say I was a four-decade man.”(Photo: Suzy Gorman, NBC) Bob Costas is a baseball guy through and through. Even when he’s talking about the Olympics, the made-for-TV mega event…

Russia will be able to have a boxing team at Rio 2016, which starts in Brazil on 5 August Russia will have 271 athletes eligible to compete at the Rio Games, says the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This is more than two-thirds of their original entry list of 389 athletes, despite the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) recommending a blanket ban after a doping scandal. Russia’s Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov…