The International Olympic Committee has retested 454 anti-doping samples taken from athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, catching 31 cheats from six different sports and 12 countries.

Donegal brother and sister Chloe and Sam Magee settled for badminton bronze in the mixed doubles event at the European Games on Saturday.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has played in an exhibition ice hockey game and scored one goal after another thanks to assists from retired professional players.

They are not native Irish flowers but are widely naturalised and grow as wild in woods and road verges. 

Irish snowboarder Seamus O’Connor’s Sochi adventure came to a disappointing end yesterday as he narrowly failed to qualify for the final of the halfpipe discipline at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Track and field is an all-consuming sport to compete in at a high level.

The torch for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi has started its first space walk.

The unlit torch for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi is to be taken on a space walk tomorrow.

Russia has apologised to two foreign journalists who were repeatedly questioned and detained by police during a trip to report on the 2014 Winter Olympics preparations in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

President Vladimir Putin has denied gays face discrimination in Russia, saying that a new law that has drawn protests worldwide does not infringe on their rights.

Russian police raided an exhibition and confiscated a painting that portrayed president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev lounging together in women’s lingerie.

A gay member of the RTÉ Vanburgh Quartet has refused to take part in a concert in Moscow in protest against Russia’s increasingly draconian laws against homosexuality.

The Russian ambassador must be called in by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore over an anti-gay clampdown in the country, ahead of next year’s winter Olympics, a leading Fine Gael TD has urged.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has ruled out a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics, claiming that anti-gay prejudice will be better tackled by attending the showpiece event.

Stephen Fry has urged British Prime Minister David Cameron to support moves to strip Russia of the 2014 Winter Olympics over concerns about anti-gay laws passed in the country.

President Barack Obama said yesterday he was “disappointed” that Russia had granted temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

One of Russia’s top crime bosses has been murdered in Moscow in a war between two mobs over lucrative construction projects.

The day after receiving his new Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin, French actor Gerard Depardieu yesterday flew to the provincial town of Saransk, where he was greeted as a local hero and offered an apartment for free.

French actor Gerard Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with President Vladimir Putin.

French actor Gerard Depardieu has flown to Sochi where he is likely to meet with President Vladimir Putin and receive a Russian passport.

Six Russians were killed and two others were injured when their snowmobile slammed into a fence and flipped over into a ditch during a night run down an Italian ski slope.

The 11 host cities for the 2018 World Cup in Russia have been announced.

Russia’s president moved quickly to address anger over the deaths of at least 171 people in severe flooding in the Black Sea region.

The death toll rose to at least 150 today from severe flooding in the Black Sea region of southern Russia that turned streets into rivers, swept away bridges and inundated thousands of homes as many residents were sleeping.

For most of us, skiing constitutes a leisure activity more than a sport, but for Cork sisters Claire (15) and Isabel (13) O’Leary it could be the ticket to representing Ireland at the Winter Olympics.

If there ever is a posthumous Olympic medal awarded for intransigence, then the ghost of David George Brownlow Cecil Burghley, sixth marquess of Exeter, gold medal winner at the 1928 Olympics and chairman of the organising and executive committees of the 1948 London Games, will surely float on the podium.

Russian Prime minister Vladimir Putin today vowed: “Retribution is inevitable” over the Moscow airport suicide bombing.

A SUICIDE bomber carrying a suitcase walked into Moscow’s busiest airport yesterday and set off a huge explosion, killing at least 35 people, reportedly including two Britons.

US President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen to support the bid by the city of Chicago to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Russia today warned the West against supporting Georgia’s leadership and called for an arms embargo against the nation until a different government was in place.

Russia’s president signed a decree today which will allow football fans visa-free entry for the Champions League final next week.

Russia’s upper house of parliament has approved a proposed law allowing visa-free entry on special occasions such as soccer’s Champions League final.

Russia’s military today deployed its first batch of new air defence missile systems which the air force chief said could be used to protect 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi has won the contest to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

A 10-year-old child was killed and at least three people were trapped by an avalanche at Russia's best-known ski resort today, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.