Free Republic

As President Barack Obama gets set to travel to Copenhagen Thursday night to make the case that Chicago should host the 2016 Olympics, good government groups are torn over how to handle the presidential sales pitch. After all, the moneyed interests behind Chicago’s bid — who bundled nearly $2 million for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — are hard to ignore and they raise the specter of influence-peddling that reformists are dedicated to fighting. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/chicago-olympic-committee_n_306135.html

Felipe Wu opens the door, apologizing for the mess. On the floor beside him sits a suitcase overstuffed with clothes. A few feet away, boxes filled with pistols and ammunition climb the stairs. There are shoes in the kitchen. Boxes in the living room. A hole in the wall where the air conditioner once sat. It is a home in disarray. A family that is about to move.

After an apparently sleepless night for both divers – albeit for very different reasons – the two finished in last place in the women’s 10-meter synchronized platform dive, a performance described as "pathetic" by local outlets.... Blame it on Rio.

On the Tube in London there’s a sign saying “Mind The Gap” to warn riders to be careful when stepping on the train – NBC might want to pay attention to the expression when it comes to Olympics ratings. With a 4.0/14 rating among adults 18-49 and 16.85 million viewers for the Closing Ceremony of the Rio Games, NBC is looking at the worst Summer Olympics results in decades. Not only are fast affiliates down to the second lowest result of the 2016 Olympics for the Comcast-owned net’s primetime coverage but they took a whooping 56% fall in the...

Ralph Lauren announced Monday it would not renew its sponsorship contract with Ryan Lochte, becoming the second company to drop the U.S. Olympic swimmer in the wake of his scandal in Rio de Janeiro. Earlier Monday, Speedo USA executives said the company would drop its sponsorship of Lochte and donate $50,000 to charity. In Ralph Lauren's case, the company stated its contract with Lochte was for the 2016 Rio Olympics only, and would not be renewed. "Ralph Lauren continues to sponsor the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team and the values that its athletes embody."

You heard it all weekend: “Four American swimmers trashed a Rio bathroom in a drunken rage and then lied to investigators about an armed robbery to cover-up their story.” It’s become conventional wisdom from network anchors trying to paint a rosy picture on a troubled Olympics to journalists who embrace the narrative of “ugly Americans” taking advantage of the downtrodden, third world Brazilians. There’s only one problem with this narrative: It appears it’s completely false. USA Today has done a thorough and extensive investigation of the security videos from the gas station in question and they’ve done something Matt Lauer...

After a controversial bronze medal wrestling match in Rio, Mongolian coaches protested their disappointing result by stripping off their clothes. The 65 kilograms freestyle wrestling match between Mongolia's Mandakhnaran Ganzorig and Uzbekistan's Ikhtiyor Navruzov initially ended with a score of 7-6 in favor of Ganzorig on Sunday. Unfortunately, Mongolia ended up losing the hard-fought bronze medal after the decision was challenged by Navruzov, citing that the Mongolian athlete began celebrating with about 10 seconds left in the match rather than continuing the match with his opponent. Judges ended up ruling in favor of Uzbekistan, who took home the bronze instead....

After a controversial bronze medal wrestling match in Rio, Mongolian coaches protested their disappointing result by stripping off their clothes.... The coaches' protest immediately elevated them to folk-hero status. The audience started shouting "Mongolia! Mongolia!"

Every satire has a ring of truth... If not for Jamaican Usain Bolt, the United States would've walked home with every gold medal that wasn't nailed down in Rio. USA doubled the score against the rest of the world in nearly every event save for ping-pong. Isn't that great, Mr. President? We've trounced them fair and square. USA doubled the score against the rest of the world in nearly every event save for ping-pong (and that's not satire). "Micro aggression is the term we use in Liberal circles. Now I have no choice except to beg the world to forgive...

If anyone deserves a beach day, it's Simone Biles and her Final Five teammates. The US gymnasts traded their leotards for bikinis and enjoyed a day out at Rio's Barra da Tijuca beach Saturday. Biles, Aly Raisman and Madison Kocian — part of the Final Five team that took nine medals in Rio — frolicked on the sand and took a dip in the ocean. Laurie Hernandez posed for a poolside picture with Biles earlier in the day. And Gabby Douglas, 20, who was not at the beach, posted a picture on Instagram of herself golfing with friends. Biles, 19...

Watching the awards ceremony and I notice not a single white guy on the team. Usually I wouldn't care and I'm all for putting the best players on the team but after all the whining we heard about no black nominees during the Academy Awards this must be asked.

South African runner Caster Semenya dominated the women’s 800-meter final Saturday in Rio, finishing well ahead of the competition to take home the gold medal. Semenya is widely believed to be “intersex,” defined by the United Nations as people born with sex characteristics “that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies.” The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) last summer suspended International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) rules prohibiting athletes who exceed a testosterone threshold from competing in women’s track and field events, clearing the way for Semenya to compete in Rio. The CAS ruling claimed...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Geno Auriemma and Diana Taurasi shared a long, emotional embrace. Mission accomplished. The dominant U.S. women's basketball team did what was expected, winning a sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal and doing it in impressive fashion. In yet another rout, the U.S. dismantled Spain 101-72 on Saturday.

The official Olympic medals table doesn’t fully capture participation, which is more reflective of the spirit of the Olympic Games. While it’s natural to celebrate winners, the pathos of losing can be more compelling, and some “losers” who tripped on the way to the podium have exhibited bravery that transcends sports. The official table is medals won, whether ranked by gold medal count or by total medals. I’ve seen some interesting variations: one that adjusts for population; one that tallies points (3 for gold, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze) then divides by a score on human rights, as...

Ryan Lochte says he's "taking full responsibility" for an incident in Brazil that has embroiled the American swimmer and three of his Olympics teammates. In an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer that aired Saturday, Lochte cites his own "immature behavior" for turning an incident involving unruly actions by the four swimmers into an international incident that led to two swimmers being pulled off their initial flight out of Rio and another paying nearly $11,000 to the Olympics' host nation. "That's why I'm taking full responsibility for it, because I overexaggerated that story," Lochte told NBC. "If I'd never done that,...

RIO DE JANEIRO (ChurchMilitant.com) - The world's fastest man is Catholic. Before he begins a competition, he says a prayer to The Holy Trinity. He is also devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and is usually seen wearing the miraculous medal, a Catholic devotional medal to Mary.Usain St. Leo Bolt was born in Sherwood Content, Trelawny, Jamaica. Born Catholic, he was given the middle name St. Leo in honor of St. Leo the Great, the 45th pope.Bolt, who competed in this year Olympics, makes the Sign of the Cross before he competes in any race, demonstrating his devotion. He...

Ryan Lochte is saying sorry. After continually, publicly claiming to have been a victim of an armed robbery during a night out with his fellow U.S. Olympic swimming teammates, the gold medalist has issued a lengthy statement regarding the unfolding scandal. "I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend—for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics," he said in a statement issued on social media Friday morning. As for...

Bruna Castro-Ruiz, 28, says she saw part of what unfolded early Sunday at a gas station in Rio, as Lochte and his teammates headed back to the Olympic village. (She says she has already spoken to police about what she saw.) Lochte has said the foursome was robbed at gunpoint after stopping at the gas station on the taxi ride home – an account he has changed slightly from earlier versions given to media. But local police later told PEOPLE that one of the swimmers in the group was seen on security video allegedly damaging a bathroom at the gas...

It took some time, but the United States now has a gold medalist in women's wrestling. And to earn it, Helen Maroulis had to beat a woman who knows a thing or two about gold medals: Japan's Saori Yoshida, a 13-time world champion and three-time reigning Olympic champion. It was a gold medal showdown that the wrestling world had been looking forward to for a long time. Maroulis, the reigning world champion at 55kg, versus Yoshida, the reigning world champion at 53kg. The first period ended with Yoshida leading 1-0 after Maroulis failed to convert when put on the 30-second...

US swimmers Ryan Lochte and James Feigen were indicted by Rio de Janeiro authorities on charges of making a false police report, ABC News reported Thursday. Brazilian police said earlier Thursday that the famous swimmer and his U.S. teammates were not robbed after a night of partying, and that the intoxicated athletes instead vandalized a gas station bathroom and were questioned by armed guards before they paid for the damage and left. The robbery that was or wasn’t has become the biggest spectacle outside of the Olympic venues in Rio, and given American Olympians a black eye in Brazil after...