In the light of current difficulties in Afghanistan, it is ironic that the country was very much in the news in 1980, because forces from the Soviet Union were occupying the country.

THE United States Olympic Committee yesterday expressed its disappointment with Michael Phelps after a newspaper published a photo of him apparently using illegal drugs.

USA Track & Field will send a drug-free team to Beijing next month for the Olympic Games, according to the governing body’s acting chief executive Bill Roe.

Justin Gatlin is making another challenge against his drug suspension tomorrow in a bid to be allowed to compete at the USA Olympic trials in Eugene beginning next weekend.

Olympic and world champion Justin Gatlin tested positive after unknowingly having testosterone cream rubbed into his legs by a massage therapist with a grievance, according to his coach Trevor Graham.

New York Olympic bid leaders are to decide whether or not to pull out of the contest for the 2012 Games after plans for their stadium were blocked.

James Rockefeller, the oldest-known US Olympic medal winner and former head of the bank that became Citigroup, has died at 102.

THE US Olympic team’s head of security is to meet his Irish counterpart in a bid to ease concerns over safety at this summer’s Athens Games.

IT IS ironic that a word as cumbersome as tetrahydrogestrinone should be the name of a drug so easy to digest.

EVENING is still coming as Tommie Smith sits on a wooden bench and looks over the Santa Monica College track, his young charges heading off for the day while the football team continues to work out.

THE US Olympic Committee (USOC) has identified 24 athletes who tested positive for banned drugs and then won medals at the Olympic Games over the last two decades, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

Carl Lewis heads the list of 19 American medallists who tested positive for drugs but were still allowed to compete at the Olympic Games in 1988.