Sport

A boat glides down the Charles River, which may have hosted Olympic events, as Boston’s bid to host the 2024 games died Monday morning. | Credit: Steven Senne / Associated Press The snow began to fall across New England in late January. By the time the blizzards finished pummeling the region, more than 90 inches had accumulated in a month’s time. Just before it began, the United States Olympic Committee tapped…

On Friday the International Olympic Committee will decide whether Almaty in Kazakhstan or the Chinese capital Beijing will host the 2022 winter Olympics. Both countries are human-rights nightmares. No matter which city wins, the Olympic movement loses. Originally the IOC had numerous suitors. But bids for the Games melted away. Voters in Munich, Stockholm, Krakow, and Graubunden, Switzerland, said thanks but no thanks to the Olympics, citing high costs, low…

A preliminary document posted to the SCOOG website last year, seemingly by accident, revealed a plan with four clusters—Downtown and Expo Park, Westwood and the Westside, Long Beach, and Avalon—and dozens of existing venues. It doesn’t show any new infrastructure beyond what looks like a handful of ferry stops. In any case, by 2024, the city is set to have completed four sizable transit projects: the Crenshaw Line, the LAX Airport Connector,…

Athletes in next year’s Summer Olympics will be swimming and boating in waters so contaminated with human feces that they risk becoming violently ill and unable to compete in the games, an Associated Press investigation has found. An AP analysis of water quality revealed dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage in Olympic and Paralympic venues – results that alarmed international experts and dismayed competitors training in…

OVERDOSE With the growth of endurance sports (the number of licensed bike racers in the U.S. increased by 15 percent between 2009 and 2013, according to USA Cycling; the number of runners has grown 70 percent over the past decade, according to the National Sporting Goods Association), there has been an increase in interest to the potential adverse acute effects of long and intense training and racing on the heart….

NASCAR has assessed the No. 98 Premium Motorsports team of driver Timmy Hill a P3 level penalty for having an unattached weight leave the car during practice on July 24 for last Sunday’s Brickyard 400. Hill, who was making just his second start with the team that recently parted ways with driver Josh Wise, caused the practice to be stopped momentarily when a piece of tungsten ballast flew out from…

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The profusion of congratulatory messages included notes from Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, NASCAR officials and even members of other teams. It’s the kind of outpouring where you’d think MB Motorsports had won a Camping World Truck Series race for the first time in the team’s 20-year history. But there was no win for Mike Mittler’s single-truck outfit, though it certainly came close. The responses all stemmed from an inspiring…

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i The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP hide caption itoggle caption Matt Rourke/AP The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP Mexico’s soccer coach, Miguel Herrera, has been fired after allegations that he punched a TV reporter. According to The Guardian, Herrera allegedly punched TV reporter Christian Martinoli while waiting in the TSA line at the Philadelphia airport on Monday….

Traffic lights with rain sensors to give quicker priority to cyclists on wet days … Heated cycle paths so cyclists won’t slip during bouts of frost … This might sound like science fiction to you, but in the Dutch city of Groningen it will soon be everyday reality. The inhabitants of this lively northern university city regard their homestead as the cycling capital of the Netherlands. They might very well…

i The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP hide caption itoggle caption Matt Rourke/AP The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP Mexico’s soccer coach, Miguel Herrera, has been fired after allegations that he punched a TV reporter. According to The Guardian, Herrera allegedly punched TV reporter Christian Martinoli while waiting in the TSA line at the Philadelphia airport on Monday….

Abby Wambach said she’s “planning on playing” at the Rio Olympics next summer but needed time to make future decisions, speaking on a morning TV show in her native Rochester, N.Y., on Wednesday. “What’s next for me, my life plan, I haven’t decided about what I’m going to do,” Wambach said (video here). “I’m planning on playing next summer in Rio, but I gotta let my body recover, because that’s the other…

The International Olympic Committee has laid the blame squarely on Boston for its aborted attempt to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, saying the city had failed to deliver on its promises. Boston was picked by the United States Olympic Committee to be the country’s candidate for the 2024 Games but the USOC rescinded its bid in a spectacular U-turn on Monday after the city’s mayor said taxpayers could not afford…

Rocky Wirtz’s dream of bringing the World Junior Championships, one of hockey’s most prestigious events, to Chicago is a step closer to becoming a reality. lRelated Chicago Blackhawks Champion Blackhawks’ attention now shifts to next season See all related USA Hockey announced Tuesday that Chicago is among five finalists to host the 2018 event, along with Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa. The annual championship features the top male hockey…

i The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP hide caption itoggle caption Matt Rourke/AP The Guardian describes Mexico’s fired coach, Miguel Herrera, as “combustible.” Matt Rourke/AP Mexico’s soccer coach, Miguel Herrera, has been fired after allegations that he punched a TV reporter. According to The Guardian, Herrera allegedly punched TV reporter Christian Martinoli while waiting in the TSA line at the Philadelphia airport on Monday….

Organisers of next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro face serious challenges over cleaning up the bay where the sailing competitions will be held, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, has admitted. Sailors in Guanabara Bay have reported worrying amounts of rubbish and pollution, including discarded furniture and floating animal carcasses. The state government has already admitted it will not be able to meet its original target of reducing pollution in…

Rocky Wirtz’s dream of bringing the World Junior Championships, one of hockey’s most prestigious events, to Chicago is a step closer to becoming a reality. lRelated Chicago Blackhawks Champion Blackhawks’ attention now shifts to next season See all related USA Hockey announced Tuesday that Chicago is among five finalists to host the 2018 event, along with Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa. The annual championship features the top male hockey…

The reason Boston’s residents didn’t want to be Athens is the same reason the residents of Oslo or Krakow or Stockholm don’t want to be Athens. Hosting an Olympics is a corporate sinkhole sucking billions of dollars and a city’s future into a bottomless abyss of excess. The internet is clogged with slide shows of empty, broken, useless stadiums built in the euphoria of a coming Olympics or World Cup…

Miguel Herrera was fired as Mexico’s soccer coach Tuesday, throwing the national team into turmoil less than four months before the start of World Cup qualifying. Herrera’s ouster comes a day after he allegedly assaulted a television commentator at an airport in Philadelphia. Decio de Maria, the incoming president of Mexico’s soccer federation, made the announcement during a news conference in Mexico City. “It is not a simple decision,” De…