CNN – Sports

By Helen Regan, Robert Iddiols, Sebastian Shukla, Taylor Barnes and Jim Sciutto, CNN Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya received a humanitarian visa from Poland on Monday, hours after she refused to board a flight out of Japan saying she was being forced to return to her native country against her will and that she feared arrest.

By Coy Wire and George Ramsay, CNN With her Tokyo Olympics drawn to a close, American swimmer Katie Ledecky can start to unwind. “I did have a hamburger after I was done — that tasted good,” she says about a celebratory meal that was more than deserved. Ledecky won 1500m and 800m freestyle golds in

By Rhea Mogul, CNN They both cleared the highest bar, but when it came to deciding a winner, two Olympic high jumpers opted not to take it to a tie-breaker. Instead, they asked to share the gold medal — prompting cheers beyond their home countries of Qatar and Italy. During the long competition, 30-year-old Mutaz

By George Ramsay, CNN As soon as the gun sounds at the start of his first Olympic 5,000-meter race, Jamal Mohammed knows his nerves will disappear. “It’s always like that,” Mohammed told CNN Sport. “You can’t really stay nervous after the gun goes; you just focus on running and following others.” In the lead up

By Seb Shukla and Taylor Barnes, CNN A Belarusian sprinter competing at the Tokyo Olympics released a video on Sunday calling for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to help her avoid being returned to her native country against her will. Athlete Kristina Timanovskaya said in the short video released on social media: “I was put

By Kevin Dotson and Seamus Fagan, CNN American swimmers Caeleb Dressel and Robert Finke won gold again on Sunday, as part of an exemplary effort from Team USA at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Dressel, who finished his Olympics on Sunday with five gold medals in all, won the men’s 50-meter freestyle gold medal with

By Jack Guy, CNN Olympians taking part in Tokyo 2020 are competing for a chance to write a page in the history books — and hopefully bring home a medal. If you do win a medal — be it gold, silver or bronze — they’re pretty much priceless. Former British heptathlete Kelly Sotherton, who won

By George Ramsay, CNN The celebrations started even before she had crossed the line, gesturing with her left arm and shouting in delight. A month-and-a-half ago, Elaine Thompson-Herah thought she wouldn’t be able to compete at the Tokyo Olympics as she struggled to overcome a nagging Achilles injury. Now, she’s not only a gold medalist,

By George Ramsay, CNN After years of dominance that equated to a glut of 20 medals across the past three Olympic Games, Great Britain’s rowers reached choppy waters in Tokyo. They leave these Games with two rowing medals — silver in the men’s quadruple sculls and bronze in the men’s eight — and, agonizingly, six

By Heather Law, CNN The Tokyo Olympics are officially underway with thousands of the world’s most outstanding athletes competing against each other in one convenient location for one enterprising TikToker. While many of us at home fawn over these Olympians thinking “what if,” comedian Reed Kavner revealed how his method of using the online dating

By Jill Martin and Nectar Gan, CNN Simone Biles will not compete in the Olympics finals for two of the four individual women’s gymnastics events, vault and the uneven bars, USA Gymnastics said. Biles, arguably the world’s greatest gymnast, has pulled back from Olympic competition in Tokyo to focus on her mental health. The 24-year-old

By George Ramsay, CNN Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega won the men’s 10,000-meter gold at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday after a thrilling sprint on the final lap. Barega moved to the front of the lead pack with 400 meters to go and kicked clear in the closing stages, finishing in a time of 27:43.22 ahead of

By Ben Morse, CNN Novak Djokovic’s search for a historic ‘Golden Slam’ came to an end on Friday as he lost to Alexander Zverev at Tokyo 2020. The world No. 1 lost 1-6 6-3 6-1 to the German in the semifinals of the Summer Games. He was bidding to become the first men’s player to

By Amanda Sealy and Selina Wang, CNN Japan’s summers are hot, humid, and can be deadly. If records are being broken during events at the Olympics, Tokyo 2020 could also emerge with perhaps a record it wouldn’t have wanted. Before the pandemic, heat stroke was the biggest risk to athletes for the Tokyo Olympics, but

By Jill Martin, CNN In a series of Instagram stories, Simone Biles shared videos — which since have been deleted — of herself struggling with her dismounts on the uneven bars and answering questions about having the twisties, a mental block in gymnastics where competitors lose track of their positioning midair. Biles, who withdrew during