Australian five-time Olympic champion Ian Thorpe has revealed that he battled depression and thoughts of suicide during his record-breaking career.

Former rugby legend Gerry McLoughlin has revealed he contemplated taking his own life after the break-up of his marriage.

Show jumper Denis Lynch has been required by Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) to attend a meeting in Dublin today to put his case as to why he should be allowed to participate in the Olympics.

Russian long jumper Irina Meleshina, a silver medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, has been handed a two-year ban by the All-Russian Athletic Federation after failing a drugs test.

Greek athletics has suspended all operations because of funding cuts, a month before the country holds the Olympic flame lighting ceremony.

Horse Sport Ireland chairman Joe Walsh has warned against a repeat of the controversies that “tarnished” Irish show jumping in the last two Olympics.

THE Greek tragedy is not just a tale of a country going broke, of corruption, or when living beyond one’s means finally catches up with a nation, warns Nikos Ksidakis.

In the doubled handed men’s 470 class Ireland’s Gerald Owens and Phil Lawton lies 9th overall after scoring a 22nd in Race 1 and 1st in Race 3 in their first day of competition.

China will allow a modicum of dissent at the Olympics, setting up special protest zones far from the main sports venues, in a shift supporters and detractors said was meant to safely channel criticism and avoid disrupting the games.

A state-of-the art museum that Greeks hope will persuade Britain to return the Elgin Marbles will start the operation to transfer priceless artefacts from the Acropolis this weekend.

Australian swimming star Ian Thorpe is to hold a press conference in Sydney on Tuesday, at which a major announcement over his future is expected.

OLYMPIC medallists Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou have accepted bans for doping violations prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics and will be eligible to compete from December.

THE Government is to establish a body to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the Olympics in London in 2012.

The appeals trial of Greece’s deadly November 17 terrorist group opened today in a special court in a maximum security Athens jail.

Double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes will make a “final decision” in the next couple of weeks over whether to retire from athletics or defend her 1,500 metres title in next year’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Norwegian Morton Hegreberg bagged a sprint finish victory in today's seventh stage of the FBD Insurance Ras from Rathdrum to Wicklow town.

KEVIN BABINGTON and Carling King produced one of only two double clears yesterday to help Ireland finish fifth in the European Show Jumping Championships in Donaueschingen, Germany.

India confirmed its first case of Sars today, a man who contracted the deadly virus after visiting Hong Kong and Singapore.

Sonia O'Sullivan's participation in the world track and field championships in Edmonton in Canada this summer could be in doubt.