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Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games on Friday. But Boston topped that earlier in the week, winning the right not to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Beantown abandoned its bid for the games after Mayor Marty Walsh refused to sign a contract with the International Olympic Committee that would have left the city responsible for billions in possible cost overruns. Did I say possible? Call it seemingly inevitable. “I cannot commit to putting the taxpayers at risk,” declared Walsh. People throughout the Bay State can now rest easy — no tax hike or debt burden...

Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee announced Friday morning. The Chinese capital will have the shortest gap between games in modern Olympic history — and become the first city to host both summer and winter games.

RIO de Janeiro--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 Rio, some of whom have already fallen ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhea. It is the first independent comprehensive testing for both viruses and bacteria at the Olympic...

As choices for potential Olympic cities go, the decision that the International Olympic Committee faces on Friday for the 2022 Winter Games ranks as one of the strangest in recent memory. Back in 2012, it looked like the race for 2022 would be extremely competitive. But after exploring bids, Oslo; Stockholm; Munich; Krakow, Poland; and St. Moritz, Switzerland; all dropped out amid public opposition and concerns over costs. Lviv, Ukraine, dropped out because of an ongoing war. That left Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, neither of which holds a reputation as a top winter sports destination compared with past cities such...

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 then abandoned soon after, allowed to fill with weeds, rodents and other signs of human escape. Is there a better sign of Greece’s collapse than a pile of useless sports...

— The U.S. Olympic Committee has dropped Boston’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, sources tells WBZ-TV political analyst Jon Keller.

Backers of Boston 2024 ought to make buying the Boston Globe building a part of their latest plan to win the Olympic Summer Games for Boston. Purchase of the Morrissey Boulevard building in Dorchester, which is up for sale, would allow the leaders of Boston 2024 to use the centrally located facility as its official, rather than its assumed, Olympic headquarters

The International Olympic Committee has made its first statement about Caitlyn Jenner's transition to a woman, responding to an online petition requesting that the organization, which runs the Olympic Games, revoke the gold medal Caitlyn (then Bruce) won during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In its response to the petition, IOC Communications Director Mark Adams tells Yahoo, "Bruce Jenner won his gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Games and there is no issue for the IOC." The IOC has had difficulty in the past defining the difference between men and women as it pertains to athletic competition. While it's rare, several...

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Dozens of demonstrators gathered at Rio de Janeiro's heavily polluted Guanabara Bay, demanding that officials clean it up before it is used as a 2016 Olympic sailing venue. Amid whistles of disapproval and shouts of "shame!" demonstrators held a beachside protest, their boats symbolically kept on the shore as they waved their oars in the air. They launched their protest at noon to coincide with low tide, when the dirtiness of the water is most evident. "Brazilian authorities promised a series of improvements to the bay but just a little more than a year ahead...

Caitlyn Jenner can make Olympic history again -- the doors to the Hall of Fame are swinging wide open for her to enter ... all she has to do is ask. Caitlyn was inducted into the H.O.F. back in 1986 thanks to her legendary gold medal in the 1976 Olympic decathlon. But, of course ... Bruce is the name attached to that honor. At least for now. Patrick Sandusky, spokesperson for the US Olympic Committee, tells TMZ they would gladly update the name to Caitlyn. He says if she files a formal request, the Committee would review it, and presto...

The former psychiatrist in chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital is pouring rain on the Bruce Jenner “Call Me Caitlyn” parade that’s sure to have the former Olympic athlete’s cheerleaders steaming. Not only does Dr. Paul R. McHugh consider changing sexes “biologically impossible,” he thinks being what is popularly called “transgender” these days is actually a “mental disorder.” McHugh, who has authored six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical journal articles, made the statements in a piece he penned for the Wall Street Journal that argued surgery is not the solution for patients who want to live life as the...

While the overall reaction to Caitlyn Jenner's introduction has been overwhelmingly positive, restoring our faith in the world and making Caitlyn herself feel 'humbled' and extremely happy, there are some who haven't reacted quite so well. In fact, a shocking petition has now been started urging the International Olympic Committee to actually REVOKE her incredible 1976 Olympic gold medal, as they claim she was "in violation of committee rules." Yes, really. The 65-year-old won the medal for the decathlon in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but now some are suggesting that she should give back the medal. And by some, we...

Interpol issued wanted-person notices Wednesday for six people accused by the Department of Justice of being involved in a vast corruption network surrounding soccer's FIFA governing body. The so-called "red notices" — which do not have the power of an international arrest warrant — were issued at the request of U.S. authorities, Interpol said in a statement. Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner and former FIFA executive committee member Nicolás Leoz were the top names on Interpol's list, followed by Alejandro Burzaco, Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis, all heads of marketing businesses based in Argentina, and José Margulies, who runs...

With less than 500 days until Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympic Games, construction of several venues has not started and some major contracts have not even been tendered, setting the stage for a last-minute rush that will likely drive up costs. It may seem like a familiar script for major sporting events. As the start date nears, the headlines invariably focus on delays and the scramble to get ready on time, and yet the games end up going ahead without major hitches. Rio 2016 may, though, end up being one of global sport's closest calls yet, resulting in a...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A 94-year-old physician who served as team doctor for five U.S. men's Olympic hockey squads has suffered serious injuries in an attack while visiting his wife's grave. KMSP-TV reported that George Nagobads was mugged Sunday afternoon at the Crystal Lake Cemetery and left bleeding from the head. A witness says Nagobads managed to get back in his car and drive away. The unidentified witness says he saw a young man looking through a wallet near the mausoleum before fleeing. Nagobads was the University of Minnesota men's hockey team physician for 34 years until his retirement in 1992....

If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was “hell,” press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn’t “know what the f— you’re talking about” and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, “f— her too.” Subsequent relations between the senior adviser and press secretary were strained. Gibbs told Kantor...

The ski jump sits shrouded in mist, its coat of snow undisturbed by any athletes hurtling down to take off into the air. A year ago, the jump bustled with activity at the Sochi Olympics. But it made unwanted history as well, becoming a symbol of how some of the plans for President Vladimir Putin's $51 billion Winter Games went terribly wrong. The cost of the facility soared from $40 million to nearly $300 million — an overrun that caused the businessman involved to flee a corruption investigation. Russia had vowed to pay for what became the most expensive Olympics...

After 30 years of disastrous multi-billion-dollar public construction disasters, cost overruns, and scandals, it appears that a bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston may be the last straw for overtaxed voters in the deep-blue state of Massachusetts. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) gave Boston the nod as the American city to bid for the 2024 summer games. In its presentation, the pro-games group Boston 2024 smugly informed the USOC that “Boston is overwhelmingly united in its bid.” Er, no. Critics quickly began comparing the Olympics to the “Big Dig,” the ambitious downtown Boston highway project...

DENVER -- The U.S. Olympic Committee chose Boston to bid for the 2024 Games in an attempt to bring the Summer Olympics to America after a 28-year gap. During a daylong meeting at the Denver airport, USOC board members chose Boston over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, all of which have been lobbying to become the American choice for more than a year.

A decision Thursday by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will apply new restrictive anti-family pressure on nations wanting to host the Olympic Games. On December 8, the IOC unanimously approved a wide-ranging package of 40 recommendations, the Olympic Agenda 2020, that includes a rewording of its anti-discrimination Principle 6 clause to include a reference to "sexual orientation" as a protected category.Hosting the games, or ‘belonging to the Olympic movement’ as its styled by the IOC, “requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC." Thus, countries hoping to host Olympic Games in the future, such as the two...