Following a successful 2018, Sport Ireland Institute Director Liam Harbison believes a bright future lies ahead for the next generation of high performance athletes.

We need to talk about transcranial direct-current stimulation.

On Thursday, soccer’s 21st World Cup opens when, in a chillingly symbolic way, two dictatorships, Russia and Saudi Arabia, meet in the Moscow curtainraiser.

Participating in sport is generally seen as a good thing for society. It has health benefits, both physical and mental. It can be a sociable activity promoting a sense of belonging, identity and inclusion, says Jack Anderson.

Trump administration officials have said there will be no more conditions imposed on North Korea before a meeting of the two nations' leaders.

"Although we are disappointed, we respect the decision of the two National Paralympic Committees."

Likening anything short of racist mass murder to racist mass murder is offensive and stupid, writes Terry Prone

With all this . . . snow, and the recent Winter Olympics as well, we thought it was an appropriate time to look at one of the toughest cold-weather sports imaginable.

The head of Russia's Olympic Committee claims their Olympic ban has been lifted.

In a truly ironic twist, it's the snow which has postponed our skiers and snowboarders' homecoming.

Most people would've been happy to take a snowday!

After a year of fraught relations with the North, the South saw the Winter Olympics as a chance to show itself to the world as a stable democracy safe for investment, says Andrew Hammond

Michael Moynihan offers a few random observations form the Winter Olympics.

I’ve really enjoyed watching the winter Olympics and wanted to share a few thoughts about what it takes to step on an Olympic start line.

The Trump administration has escalated pressure on North Korea by slapping sanctions on scores of companies and ships accused of illicit trading with the pariah nation.

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Elise Christie is “desperate” to overcome an ankle injury to make a final bid for Winter Olympics glory in Pyeongchang.

Here are all the latest headlines this lunchtime.

And so Irish sport’s answer to the Winter Olympics — otherwise known as the League of Ireland summer season — comes around again, the burning passion of the faithful set to go head to head with the piercing February chill on this long-awaited opening night.

They actually got it pretty spot on.

MC Con Murphy was drawing a panel discussion to a close at the end of the SSE Airtricity League 2018 launch at the Aviva Stadium yesterday when one of his guests politely asked if he could make one additional point.

The Winter Olympics are supposed to be cold, of course. Just maybe not this cold.

Scratch beneath the political permafrost and the frozen vials of Russian urine, set aside a far-from-thawed Cold War, and a Winter Olympics is threatening to break out in Pyeongchang.

In an extraordinary show of unexpected unity, North and South Korea sat side by side yesterday under exploding fireworks that represented peace, not destruction, as the 2018 Winter Olympics opened on a Korean Peninsula riven by generations of anger,

Corkman Finbarr Kirwan, formerly of the Irish Sports Council, is now senior director of performance with the US Olympic Committee. His job is putting US athletes on an Olympic podium, the currency he deals in is medals. Billy Walsh has already been tempted Stateside to drive standards in American boxing and Kirwan sees more Irish coaches moving to the US.

US vice president Mike Pence is using his appearance at the Winter Olympics to call on the international community to get tougher on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and human rights abuses.

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International sport is in need of some Black Box Thinking, writes Jack Anderson

Seamus O’Connor will be Ireland’s flag bearer tomorrow morning as the coldest Winter Olympics in decades gets underway with the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The US is preparing to announce the "toughest and most aggressive" economic sanctions against North Korea, boosting pressure on the regime during the Winter Olympics, Mike Pence has said.

Sport Ireland has defended its handling of Steven Colvert’s doping case in the wake of a claim by one of the world’s leading anti-doping experts that the Irish sprinter was wrongfully convicted.

The United States' special envoy for North Korea has said America is not close to taking military action against the North.

In the escalating battle for our attention, and the chance to caress our credit cards, sports broadcasting has become a hard-fought battleground.

There’s a famously difficult move in freestyle skiing called a ‘cork’, a fact that particularly tickles Brendan Newby.

North and South Korea have agreed in principle to field a joint women’s ice hockey team during next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea.

North Korea has claimed Michael Wolff's bombshell new book about Donald Trump spells the end of the US president's political career.

The US has agreed to delay joint military exercises with South Korea until after the Winter Olympics, the Pentagon has said.

North Korea has announced it will reopen a cross-border communication channel, according to South Korea, in another sign of easing animosity between the rivals.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said the United States should be aware that his country's nuclear forces are now a reality, not a threat.

Russian athletes who are proven to be clean should be allowed to compete under the Russian flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics, according to Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov.

Individual athletes who can prove they have not cheated could compete under the Olympic flag.

The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) will examine the position on the board of its former president, Pat Hickey, in January.

Russia has been banned from sending a team to February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

The lawyer of the man who blew the whistle on Russia's state-sponsored doping programme believes anything other than a ban from February's Winter Olympics would "embolden the cheats".

The Olympic Council of Ireland wants an immediate meeting with the Sports Minister to seek the reinstatement of its State funding.