Australia’s swimming superstar Ian Thorpe has announced his immediate retirement from the sport at the age of 24.

The Romanian Athletics Federation will push ahead with plans to pay their elite athletes to train outside the country for the rest of the winter after complaints about training facilities.

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has congratulated Ireland's Cian O'Connor on winning the gold medal for individual showjumping at the Olympic Games in Athens this evening.

The athlete who admitted taking the performance-enhancing drug EPO arrived back in Ireland tonight to face officials.

Irish Olympic athlete Cathal Lombard arrives back in Dublin today to face officials after failing a drugs test.

Eddie Cassidy

1500m runner Gareth Turnbull's chances of making the Athens Olympic Games seem to be dashed after a poor run at the North Down Games in Bangor.

Organisers of the Olympic Games in Athens have destroyed vital wildlife habitats, a trail of destruction which is threatening to spread to nearby mountains, the World Wide Fund for Nature said today.

Greece’s food safety watchdog has found 70% of food outlets surveyed this year have broken safety and hygiene rules and will fine or shut down hundreds of them, weeks before the Athens Olympic Games.

WORLD football's governing body has agreed to fall into line with the global anti-doping programme provided it can run its own show.

World football’s governing body has agreed to fall into line with the global anti-doping programme – provided it can run its own show.

Security will be top of the agenda at two top-level meetings of international Olympic leaders this week, following today’s bomb blasts in Athens.

Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones will return to European track action at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham on February 20.

The “vast majority” of Britons support a Greek proposal to return marbles removed from the ancient Parthenon for display in Athens during the Olympics, the Greek government’s top games official said.

EVEN as Cork romped to their facile 4-16 to 0-3 win over Galway in the All-Ireland senior camogie semi-final just under four weeks ago, one player in particular stood out for the victors.

THE Olympic Council of Ireland will stand firm on the standards and quotas for next year’s Olympic Games in Athens — which means that only A standards will be accepted in the case of athletics and swimming — as well as on the final date for achieving those standards, set as June 30 next year.

WPP Group, the world’s biggest advertising group, warned of further advertising gloom yesterday, predicting no recovery until next year at the earliest as it posted an 8% slide in underlying revenues.