War and unrest
FILE - Greek actress Xanthi Georgiou, playing the role of High Priestess, lights the torch with the flame during the Olympic flame handover ceremony at Panathinean stadium in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. Instead of arriving overland, the symbolic flame alighting the Paris 2024 Games will take to the seas from its birthplace in Greece, arriving aboard a three-masted tall ship in the French port of Marseille. Paris 2024 organizers announced the flame's journey Friday Feb.3, 2023 at City Hall in Marseille, a former Greek colony founded 2,600 years ago. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
Column: IOC talks tough on Russia — until Paris on horizon

By Paul Newberry Feb. 03, 2023 04:29 PM EST

FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2014 file photo Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and IOC President Thomas Bach meet in the Bolshoi Ice Dome in Sochi, Russia. The question of if and how Russia competes at the Olympics hangs over the 2024 Paris Summer Games. Just as it has now for five straight Olympics during Thomas Bach’s leadership of the IOC. The Bach-led International Olympic Committee's support this week for some Russians to compete in Paris as neutrals was publicly challenged Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service via AP, file)
Olympic echoes of boycott era as Ukraine vs IOC intensifies

Feb. 03, 2023 03:12 PM EST

FILE- Gene Sykes claps after City Council voted 12-0 to endorse documents at the heart of its plan to stage the Summer Olympics for the third time since 1932, in Los Angeles on Aug. 11, 2017. The new leader of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has reiterated the federation’s support for exploring a way for Russian athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics as neutrals. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
USOPC: Russian pathway possible, but sanctions must remain

By Eddie Pells Feb. 01, 2023 08:59 PM EST

FILE - Former heavyweight boxing world champion Wladimir Klitschko leaves after a meeting with German Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck in Berlin, March 31, 2022. Olympic gold medalist Wladimir Klitschko has joined Ukraine’s fight against IOC plans to let some Russians compete at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, it was announced Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. The former heavyweight world champion has suggested in a video message sports leaders will be accomplices to the war if athletes from Russia and its military ally Belarus can compete at the next Olympics. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file)
Boxer Klitschko joins fight against Olympic path for Russia

By Graham Dunbar Jan. 31, 2023 11:05 AM EST

FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2014 file photo Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and IOC President Thomas Bach meet in the Bolshoi Ice Dome in Sochi, Russia. The question of if and how Russia competes at the Olympics hangs over the 2024 Paris Summer Games. Just as it has now for five straight Olympics during Thomas Bach’s leadership of the IOC. The Bach-led International Olympic Committee's support this week for some Russians to compete in Paris as neutrals was publicly challenged Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service via AP, file)
Russia issue looms for Paris Olympics, Zelenskyy rebukes IOC

By Graham Dunbar Jan. 28, 2023 09:36 AM EST

FILE - United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Board Chairperson and President Susanne Lyons speaks during a press conference at the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing. Lyons conceded Monday, Dec. 12, 2022, that it would be “impossible” to monitor which athletes have supported the war in Ukraine if a plan is devised to allow some Russians to compete as neutrals in international competitions, and potentially the Olympics. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
USOPC sees 'impossible' hurdle to Russian return to Olympics

By Eddie Pells Dec. 12, 2022 12:36 PM EST

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a ceremony to sign the treaties for four regions of Ukraine to join Russia, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. The signing of the treaties making the four regions part of Russia follows the completion of the Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums." (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
IOC's Bach eyes return to sports for anti-war Russians

By Graham Dunbar Sep. 30, 2022 11:31 AM EDT

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach addresses a ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the deadly attack on the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich by a Palestinian militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. The head of the International Olympic Committee has apologized for the organization's longtime failure to commemorate 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Bach said the Palestinian attack in Munich was one of "the darkest days in Olympic history" and an assault on the Olympic Games and its values. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
IOC chief sorry for not honoring 1972 Olympic attack victims

Sep. 21, 2022 01:15 PM EDT

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, left, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, right, attend a wreath laying ceremony to commemorate the victims of the attack by Palestinian militants on the 1972 Munich Olympics in Fuerstenfeldbruck near Munich, Germany, Monday, Sept. 5, 2002. The German and Israeli presidents are to join relatives of the 11 Israeli athletes killed in the attack by Palestinian militants on the commemoration event. (Sven Hoppe/dpa via AP)
German president apologizes for 1972 Olympic attack failures

By Geir Moulson Sep. 05, 2022 10:38 AM EDT

FILE - Ankie Spitzer holds a framed photo her husband Andre had made for the Munich Olympics before his death, as she poses in her home in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, on July 28, 2022. Andre was a fencing coach with the Israeli Olympic team who was killed in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich by a Palestinian group. In a decision announced Thursday, Aug. 11, the families of 11 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian attackers at the Olympics will not attend a 50-year anniversary ceremony organized by German authorities, saying they deserve more compensation and a fuller reckoning of the tragedy. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
Column: 50 years later, the pain from Munich lingers

By Paul Newberry Sep. 02, 2022 06:06 PM EDT

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, shake hands after a press conference after their talks in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Aug.16, 2022. (Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP)
Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack

By Frank Jordans Aug. 16, 2022 09:43 PM EDT

Artem Pryma of Ukraine, right, tags teammate Dmytro Pidruchnyi during the biathlon 4x6-kilometer mixed relay at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Ukrainian athletes join military after Russian invasion

By James Ellingworth Mar. 02, 2022 06:47 AM EST

China's He Binghan competes during the men's halfpipe qualification at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Beijing Olympics get political with Taiwan, Uyghur questions

By Stephen Wade And Graham Dunbar Feb. 17, 2022 02:18 AM EST

Prayer flags festoon a structure by Hailuogou Glacier in Chagsam County, in southwestern China's Sichuan province on Sept. 7, 2020. Ahead of the Beijing summer Olympics 14 years ago, Tibet was on fire. Deadly clashes between Tibetans and security forces in Lhasa made global headlines, and for weeks, monks and herders battled bullets and batons. But today, Tibet has fallen silent, even as the Olympic games come to Beijing for a second time. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
This time, Tibet stands silent as Olympics return to China

By Dake Kang And Sam Mcneil Feb. 16, 2022 12:25 AM EST

Monks walk in Labrang monastery in Sangqu county, in southwestern China's Sichuan province on Monday, Sept. 19, 2020. Ahead of the Beijing summer Olympics 14 years ago, Tibet was on fire. Deadly clashes between Tibetans and security forces in Lhasa made global headlines, and for weeks, monks and herders battled bullets and batons.  But today, Tibet has fallen silent, even as the Olympic games come to Beijing for a second time. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
This time, Tibet stands silent as Olympics return to China

By Dake Kang And Sam Mcneil Feb. 16, 2022 12:08 AM EST

FILE- Volunteers make kimchi, a traditional pungent vegetable dish, to donate to needy neighbors, at a temple in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. Alongside politics, frictions between China and South Korea have long been driven by cultural issues, even including the origin of kimchi, a Korean national dish of fermented cabbage that China claims as its own invention. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)
Behind China-South Korea skating row, a deeper cultural rift

By Kim Tong-Hyung Feb. 11, 2022 09:42 PM EST

In this frame from video, Vladyslav Heraskevych, of Ukraine, holds a sign that reads "No War in Ukraine" after finishing a run at the men's skeleton competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. (NBC via AP)
Olympian flashes 'No War in Ukraine' sign after competing

By Tim Reynolds Feb. 11, 2022 08:28 AM EST

FILE-In this photograph provided by the Indian Army, army officers of India and China hold a meeting at Pangong lake region in Ladakh on the India-China border on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021. India will not attend Friday's opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, after one of the torchbearers reportedly chosen by Chinese authorities riled up New Delhi's anger. India's foreign affairs spokesman Arindam Bagchi on Thursday said it was "regrettable that the Chinese side has chosen to politicize an event like the Olympics." (Indian Army via AP, File)
EXPLAINER: Why India won't send diplomat to China Olympics

By Sheikh Saaliq Feb. 04, 2022 02:13 AM EST

FILE- Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso speaks at a signing ceremony that expands the Galapagos Maritime Reserve by 60,000 square kilometers, aboard the Sierra Negra research vessel in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022. The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for the opening ceremony on Friday, Feb. 4. Lasso, who is seeking to renegotiate the country's $4.6 billion debt to China, will be in Beijing for the ceremony. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
World leaders: Who's coming, who isn't to Beijing Olympics

Feb. 03, 2022 09:43 PM EST

A man wearing a hat baring an American flag and face mask to help protect from the coronavirus walks by a masked security guard near lanterns decoration on the remnants of a city wall in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. China is demanding the U.S. end “interference” in the Beijing Winter Olympics, which begin next month, in an apparent reference to a diplomatic boycott imposed by Washington and its allies. The Foreign Ministry said Minister Wang Yi made the demand in a phone call with U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday Beijing time. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
China demands US halt Olympics 'interference'

Jan. 27, 2022 01:50 AM EST