Becoming President of an Organising Committee is a notable achievement but Swiss freestyle skiing star Virginie Faivre undoubtedly wishes she could have done so in less tragic circumstances.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) lost one of its most distinctive and thought-provoking voices when Richard Peterkin stepped down as full member at the end of last year, on attaining the applicable age-limit.
The 2019 Australian Open, which starts on January 14 on the hard courts of Melbourne Park, will be historic - no matter what the results. The 107th edition, and the 51st in the Open Era, will feature for the first time final set tie-breaks in singles matches.
As we move towards the close of another hectic, controversial, spectacular, worrying (please employ another five or so random adjectives of your choice, to taste) sporting year it is clear that we have had some very obvious highs and, yes, some very clear lows.
Next year, in the space of just over four months, the International University Sports Federation (FISU) will stage not one but two multi-sport events second only to the Olympics in terms of scale and complexity.
Before the International Swimming Federation (FINA) Short Course World Swimming Championships get underway in Hangzhou in China on Tuesday (December 11), the InterContinental Hangzhou hotel is hosting the fifth edition of the World Aquatics Convention.
Jump, or if you prefer, vault back just over two years ago to the point where Bruno Grandi, the grand old man of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), was about to give way as President to one of two men.
As far as England football followers are concerned, the number is one. One World Cup win, 1966. Nothing since. For followers of India's men's hockey team the figures are more complex, but the overall story is the same.
Often when I meet those who have scrambled to the top of international sport's greasy pole, I conclude that they are politicians first and administrators second.
Today marks 100 years since "the war to end all wars" came to an end. The guns fell silent at the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month in 1918.
Starting this Friday (November 9), Norway's 27-year-old chess player Magnus Carlsen, the world champion since 2013, will defend his title against Fabiano Caruana, who is a year his junior.
The decision to award Russia the 2020 European Weightlifting Championships on the same day its one-year suspension from the sport expired on October 17 was certainly a bold one.
La Liga President Javier Tebas certainly did not mince his words at last week's SPORTELMonaco convention, describing opposition to plans to play a match in the near future in the United States as "sporting puritanism".
For some - no, for many cities, the experience of having an Olympic bid aborted would deflate ambitions for major sporting expansion. Not so for Budapest, which today stages the official opening of the World Wrestling Championships, the latest in a dizzying succession of top international events taking place in the Hungarian capital.
Politics has been intermingled with sport in every one of the modern Olympics. That mixture was at its most violent and shocking at the 1972 Munich Games, when the Palestinian Black September group took 11 Israeli Olympic team members hostage, seeking a release of prisoners, and ended up killing them along with a West German police officer.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili was disqualified for weighing in at nearly four pounds above the limit for his weight class of his under-66 kilograms match against an Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the first round. It was claimed Miresmaeili had gone on an eating binge to protest the International Olympic Committee's recognition of the state of Israel. Iran does not recognise the state of Israel, and Miresmaeili's actions won praise from high-ranking Iranian officials. Mohammad Khatami, the country's President at the time, was quoted as saying Miresmaili's actions would be "recorded in the history of Iranian glories". He was later awarded $125,000 by the Government - the same amount given to Olympic gold medallists.
ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 - Event IT Support Operative - London, UK
In 2019, England and Wales are set to host the ICC Cricket World Cup for the fifth time and you could be part of it. We’re introducing this role to work within the Event Technology Team providing additional technology support to wider internal functional areas; whilst assisting on other key projects around tournament time support capabilities.
Virginie Faivre took over as Lausanne 2020 President in tragic circumstances following the death of Patrick Baumann. With one year to go until the Winter Youth Olympic Games, Liam Morgan speaks to the Swiss freestyle skier about the challenge of stepping into the breach.
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