The race of the championships

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has his expressed confidence over the financial implications of hosting the 2022 Winter Games after formally declaring the three candidate cities in Lausanne on Monday.

China blocked one of its most famous contemporary artists from taking a flight to Hong Kong today and police later raided his Beijing studio, the man’s assistant said.

A SENIOR Croke Park staffer has landed a major new job helping to run the London Olympics of 2012.

A vast floor within London's Tate Modern art gallery has been carpeted with more than 100 million “sunflower seeds” – the latest commission in the annual Unilever Series.

A LITTLE under a year ago, David Gillick’s world was caving in around him. His Olympic 400m campaign came and went in 45.83 seconds as he failed to progress beyond the first round in the Bird’s Nest Stadium.

The floodlit cream shells of the famed Opera House dimmed today as Sydney became the world’s first major city to plunge itself into darkness for the second worldwide Earth Hour, a global campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

RICKY SIMMS can pinpoint the day his life changed.

Ireland’s medal-winning Paralympic team got a heroes welcome tonight as they touched down on home soil clutching a haul of medals.

ON A day that will be remembered at the Paralympic Games for the bronze medal- winning performance of Gabriel Shelly in the individual Boccia competition, Ireland’s other paralympians were not to be outdone, setting new Irish records in the velodrome, and the Water Cube.

IRISH cyclists Padraic Moran and Gay Shelly set new national records in their respective events on a day of contrasting emotions in the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing yesterday.

Ireland’s Paralympic team of 45 athletes, coaches and support staff departed Dublin Airport this morning bound for the team’s training camp in the Chinese capital.

London 2012 will unveil their blueprint to be the cool Olympics with an eight-minute slot in the Beijing closing ceremony that will combine the best of British rock, glamour, culture and sport.

ALISTAIR CRAGG will have some exalted athletics company around him when he contests today’s Olympic 5000m final at the Bird’s Nest Stadium (1.10pm, Irish).

JAMAICA obliterated the field in the men’s 4x100 metres relay as Usain Bolt claimed his third gold medal and world record of the Beijing Games.

Usain Bolt won his third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics as Jamaica smashed the world 4x100m record with a superb time of 37.10 seconds.

VERONICA Campbell-Brown continued a brilliant Olympic Games for Jamaica by successfully defending her 200 metres title in Beijing yesterday.

THOMAS CHAMNEY yesterday demanded a change of mindset in Irish athletics if the under-fire sport is to regain credibility.

AS HIS fellow competitors headed for the changing rooms, Ireland’s 200m sprinter Paul Hession lingered on the track for a while watching himself on one of the giant screens which hang in this vast Bird’s Nest Stadium.

Our population figures are almost identical, our climates are similar, as is our love of sport. So why is New Zealand — and not Ireland — punching above its weight at the Olympic Games?

THE armoured personnel carrier may have gone but security is noticeably tighter around certain Olympic sites. Yesterday access areas to the Olympic Village, Media Centre and the Bird’s Nest Stadium were patrolled by troops in full combat fatigues with automatic weapons cradled in their arms.

The Beijing Olympics will open today, firing the starting gun for the world’s ultimate sporting competition.

LET the games begin!