Sport

There is far more to it than two armoured horse riders hurtling towards each other with 12ft lances. Jousting demands levels of athleticism, agility and equestrianism that make it an ideal candidate for the Olympics, English Heritage argues. The organisation has launched a campaign to get jousting recognised as an Olympic sport in time for Tokyo 2020. “We are being deadly serious,” said Lucy Hutchings, English Heritage’s head of projects….

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There is far more to it than two armoured horse riders hurtling towards each other with 12ft lances. Jousting demands levels of athleticism, agility and equestrianism that make it an ideal candidate for the Olympics, English Heritage argues. The organisation has launched a campaign to get jousting recognised as an Olympic sport in time for Tokyo 2020. “We are being deadly serious,” said Lucy Hutchings, English Heritage’s head of projects….

Yelena Isinbayeva, the 2012 Olympic pole-vault champion, was among the 68 athletes to appeal and may now be unable to defend her title in Rio Russian track and field athletes will remain banned from the Olympics following claims the country ran a state-sponsored doping programme. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 68 Russian athletes attempted to overturn the suspension, implemented by the body that governs world athletics. But the Court…

PHOTOS: Big-name drivers in No. 88 | Junior through the years   For at least the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, starting this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Jeff Gordon will be behind the wheel of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet as Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to recover from concussion-like symptoms.   The high-profile changing of seats prompts several questions — for the recovering Earnhardt Jr., the…

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) – Brazilians are not happy that the Olympics are in their backyard. An estimated 50% of Brazilians are against the Olympics, according to Brazilian polling agency Datafolha. That’s double the disapproval rating from June 2013. It’s a sobering reminder that Brazilians are grappling with the country’s historic recession, which has shadowed the lead up to the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, which start August 5. The…

MOSCOW — Russia’s top Olympic official expects a final decision by Sunday on whether the entire Russian team will be banned from next month’s games in Rio de Janeiro over allegations of state-sponsored doping. The International Olympic Committee is examining the legal options of a blanket ban following a report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren that accused Russia’s sports ministry of overseeing doping of the country’s Olympic athletes….

Though Brazil has been in the news all year for a massive Zika epidemic, health officials aren’t concerned that the Olympics in Rio will pose a big risk for spread of the virus. The World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control have all said the risk is low. The key reasons: It’s winter there, so mosquitoes…

comment () It’s been 20 years since Dominique Dawes and her fellow “Magnificent Seven” gymnasts won gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics, the first U.S. team to achieve the feat. Today, Dawes is a busy stay-at-home mom to her two daughters, Kateri, 2, and Quinn, 10 months. She and husband, Jeff Thompson, recently celebrated their third wedding anniversary, and when she is not keeping up with her kids, Dawes works…

You won’t need to spend Olympic gold to see the Games in person this summer. Demand for tickets to the Rio Olympics has been low in the months leading up to the events, which will run from Aug. 5 to Aug. 21. Ticket sales have been so slow that Rio organizers will now allow buyers from outside Brazil to purchase…

Your teams. Your favorite writers. Wherever you want them. Personalize SI with our new App. Install on iOS or Android. Welcome to the SI Media Mailbag. Writing a Mailbag—as egocentric as it is—is a fun exercise. So thanks for tweeting these questions. (Questions have been edited for grammar, clarity and concision.) Which sports media member do you think could shift immediately to election coverage and excel at it? — @TheOutlawMacaw…

RELATED: Pictures of Gordon through the years | Junior through the years Jeff Gordon is not done after all. The recently retired Hendrick Motorsports driver will compete for the first time this year Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a substitute driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr. , who will be sidelined at least two more weeks due to concussion-like symptoms, according to a team release. Gordon will also sub for…

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On 4 July 2007, Vladimir Putin arrived by private jet in Guatemala City ready for the 119th session of the International Olympic Committee. Russia was one of three nations bidding to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, along with Austria and South Korea. The bookmakers had Sochi down a distant second in the betting, way behind Pyeongchang. Russia had failed to even make the IOC’s shortlist to host the 2002 Games…

Experts are questioning a recent pledge of allegiance to ISIS by a purported group of extremists in Brazil in what may be an attempt to rattle the international community before the Rio Olympics. A group calling itself Ansar al-Khilafah Brazil on Sunday pledged its loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on the messaging app Telegram and promised to “wage jihad against the enemy of Allah.” The group also posted…

For the first time in 135 years, Manchester United and Manchester City will be meeting outside England. Way outside: On July 25, the two soccer teams will kick off at the National Stadium in Beijing. The match is part of the International Champions Cup, a three-year-old series of global exhibition games that has become a high-profile way for clubs to woo fans in more places. Three ICC games will be…