Free Republic

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."

Caster Semenya, 25, a South African runner, is tipped to win the 800m But the athlete has ignited a debate about gender at the Olympic Games Semenya has testosterone levels three times the normal level in women She has no womb or ovaries but rather internal testes due to abnormality Of all the stars at Rio, few are as hotly tipped for resounding victory as 800m runner Caster Semenya. Fewer still can match her for controversy. There are those who say she should not be allowed to compete in the Olympics women’s 800m, which she is almost certain to win....

Portugal's minister of education was robbed as he headed back to his hotel in the South American city as it emerged the Olympic security chief had also been attacked after the opening ceremony The Rio 2016 Olympic games have been rocked by more trouble after it emerged the Olympic security chief had been attacked after he left the opening ceremony. The Olympics security chief was attacked as he left the Games opening ceremony by a knife-wielding robber who was shot dead by a cop.

<p>Rio officials reportedly had to force their way into the Olympic Stadium Wednesday after misplacing the keys to one of the main entrances, causing hours in delays.</p> <p>Ms. Carneiro filmed three men she described as “firemen” using a pair of bolt cutters to break the lock on the gate.</p>

A jaguar featured at an Olympic torch ceremony was shot dead by a soldier shortly after the event in the Brazilian Amazon city of Manaus as the animal escaped from its handlers, an army statement said. The jaguar was killed on Monday at a zoo attached to a military training center when a soldier fired a single pistol shot after the animal, despite being tranquilized, approached the soldier, the army said. “We made a mistake in permitting the Olympic torch, a symbol of peace and unity, to be exhibited alongside a chained wild animal. This image goes against our beliefs...

Colorado's six-time Olympic gold medal winning swimmer Amy Van Dyken-Rouen says agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) humiliated her. She took to social media Sunday to detail her experience getting through security at Denver International Airport. She said agents made her go through a full body search even though she has Pre check. "They go around your breasts, they basically go under your butt and the just grab things, not grab, they touch things that are not appropriate and it's really embarrassing," said Van Dyken-Rouen. Van Dyken-Rouen said as much as she and husband Tom travel all over the...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of Rio's Guanabara Bay on Wednesday, not far from where events are being held at this year's Olympic Games, environmental officials said. The incident was the latest involving water quality in the bay, where sailing, open water swimming, and triathlon races are due to take place at the Games in August. "Officials found rubbish in the water and on the beach as well as a considerable number of dead fish all from the same species of sardine," the government's State Environmental Institute said in a statement....

Finally, at long last, someone has gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch — Boston 2024. There is a God. The lesson here is from Abraham Lincoln: You can’t fool all of the people all of the time — even in Massachusetts. It’s a great victory for the people, but it could easily have gone the other way. What if Marsha Coakley had been elected governor? The state would already be on the hook for $5 billion in cost overruns. Like most flim-flams, the Boston Olympics collapsed abruptly. Perplexing,...

FaceBook (USA Curling) ‪#‎curling‬ on CNBC between 3-8 p.m. on Tuesday had 2.6 million viewers. Highest ratings ever for a show on CNBC. ‪#‎rockinit‬ Go suck it CNBC!!! And while you're at it tell your homies at MSNBC they suck too. They can "lean forward" over the rock and do a face plant (ala Russian Team Captain)

In addition to physical work on the farm in the afternoons, weekends and holidays, he was regularly charged with what his father refers to as "incredibly boring stuff," like picking stones from a field, just to improve his psyche. Every time he hurt himself, his father would tease him until he stopped crying. Eventually, he came to believe pain is cool. "My father taught me at an early age to tackle pain—I think that's my strength. I can go for hours in pain without giving up," he said.

All time & each Olympics As you scan the Olympic medal tally, one thing stands out: larger countries tend to win more medals. An obvious exception, especially in 2008, is Australia, who won the fifth largest number of medals with a population of 23 million, 52nd largest of Olympic countries. The obvious next question is: who leads the world in medals per capita? This site, which is updated daily during the Olympics, provides the answer.

SOCHI, Russia, A photo of two toilets side by side in a Sochi Olympics bathroom stall is causing a stir, with an opposition leader calling it an example of mismanaged funds. The photo of two toilets in a men's bathroom stall at the Olympic Biathlon Center, which went viral after being posted to Twitter by a BBC correspondent, led social media users to joke about officials spending too much money on toilets and not enough on stall partitions, the Moscow Times reported Thursday. The photo of the toilets indicates the possibility of an even more awkward situation, as the stall's...

U.S. counterterrorism operatives are helping Russian security agents in the hunt for a "white widow" -- the wife of a dead terrorist -- who could already be inside the massive security zone set up for next month's winter Olympics. Ruzanna Ibragimova, the 22-year-old widow of a jihadist killed during the Moscow theater attack, is believed to have traveled from Dagestan to Sochi...

Japan condemns Fukushima cartoon Japan has formally protested over a French newspaper cartoon depicting sumo wrestlers with extra limbs fighting in front of the country's crippled nuclear power plant and linking it to Tokyo's successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics. Published: Thu, September 12, 2013 Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the cartoon insulted those affected by the March 2011 disaster and misrepresented conditions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. A Foreign Ministry official said Japan has submitted an official complaint to the weekly paper Le Canard Enchaine's chief editor Louis Marie Horeau through its embassy in Paris....

U.S. Olympic boxer Terrell Gausha is so disgusted over the George Zimmerman verdict ... he's vowing to never sport the red, white and blue again. Gausha -- who boxed in the 2012 London Summer Games -- started wearing the American flag on his boxing trunks after his Olympic run ... but tells TMZ he's done with that now in the wake of Zimmerman's acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Click link to watch. Time: 1:01:25

I write this because of something I just saw on Fox News as they showed a clip from NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. The video clip started out saying some Americans were complaining about our athletes celebrating their gold medal wins and the Nike T-shirt they wore bearing the phrase “GREATNESS HAS BEEN FOUND”. What I found difficult to watch was watching two of the women’s soccer team bend down and pick up two American Flags that laid on the ground and wrapped themselves in them. It was not the action I felt uncomfortable with, it was the disrespect shown...

North Korea's Olympic athletes are thrilling their countrymen with surprising success in winning medals and they are attributing their success to their Dear Leader Kim Jong Un. But others, including former North Korean athletes who have defected, suggest the success of the country's small contingent of athletes at the games may be the result of a policy of training them from a very young age at specialized schools, backed up by rewards like cars and refrigerators for winners and the threat of labor camps for losers. North Korea ranks 14th in the overall medal count, but fifth in terms of...

One of the highlights of the 2012 Olympics will undoubtedly be diving. There’s been some stiff competition this year, especially in the preliminary rounds, and all the athletes have been killing themselves trying to look as graceful as possible while tumbling through the air. How do we know? There’s something on each diver’s face that just reads, “This stunt is kind of difficult to do.” These competitors may look like elegant swans from a distance, but when the camera gets right up close for those slow-motion instant replays, not one of them is capable of hiding the pain in their...

The head of the Palestinian Olympic delegation has thanked the International Olympic Committee for denying, again, requests to hold a moment of silence to honor the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In a letter sent Tuesday to IOC President Jacques Rogge, Jibril Rajoub said any show of solidarity with the victims would constitute “racism.” The Palestinian terror group Black September was responsible for the slayings. “Sports are a bridge for love, communication and the spreading of peace between nations and should not be used for divisiveness and the spread of racism,” Rajoub wrote, according to the...