All Olympics

Pageantry and sport do not guarantee global good feeling. But in tough times in the past, the ideals of the Olympics have helped buoy a weary world. Could it happen again in Paris?

Every four years an Olympic host city participates in a ritual of perseverance – with locals and tourists valiantly navigating their environs. In Paris, how has a focus on sustainability affected venue locations?

Coco Gauff and LeBron James were picked by their fellow Olympians to serve as Team USA’s flagbearers for the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on July 26. Ms. Gauff is the first tennis player and Mr. James is the first male basketball player to receive the honor. 

As the 2024 Olympics approach, it can be easy to get caught up in the intensity of competition. These Olympians remind us how joyful sporting can be.

You know them as competitors, but what about as savvy business people? With the Olympics kicking off in a week, meet athletes who have embraced the entrepreneurial spirit.

Paris Olympics swimming events are scheduled to take place in the Seine River, where swimming has been illegal due to pollution levels for nearly a century. Despite cleanup efforts, it’s unclear if the water quality will improve by the start of the Games.

For the first time, the Paris Olympics will host an equal number of male and female competitors. But women striving to reach Olympic coaching levels still face bullying and discrimination. Barely 10% of the coaches at the Summer Games will be women.

The U.S. Olympic track trials concluded with the team on pace to bring home up to 30 medals in Paris. Top athletes to watch include Noah Lyles, Sha’Carri Richardson, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who shattered the world record in the 400-meter hurdles.

In an Olympic year, difficult choices are often made about who participates on the U.S. basketball teams. How do officials balance ability and chemistry among players versus popularity?

The Olympics aren’t the only event coming to Paris this summer. So are the Paralympics, and the city is trying to change how the French see accessibility, so that athletes and visitors with disabilities can feel welcome – now, and in the future.

In a seismic change, the NCAA agreed to pay its athletes directly as part of a $2.8 billion settlement. U.S. Olympic Track & Field also announced prize money for the first time ever in Paris.

The River Seine is going to be a centerpiece of the Paris Olympics this summer. Authorities are in an urgent rush to make sure it’s swimmable for athletes and secured for attendees.

A team of technicians from nine different countries fix everything from broken wheelchairs to sit-skis during the Paralympic Games in South Korea. 

Mike Schultz, the top-ranked snowboarder heading into the Paralympic Games in South Korea, takes pride in helping his competitors. Mr. Schultz designs and custom fits prosthetics, with 30 male and female athletes using his inventions at these Games. 

With the Pyeongchang Games over, South Korea is beginning to deal with the long-term environmental consequences of hosting the Olympic Games. At the heart of the matter is the Jeongseon Alpine Center, built after 60,000 trees were removed from a mountain previously protected for its botanical diversity.

The attention on medals belies the grander purpose of the Games – and their relevance to a world facing much harder challenges than triple axels or tricks in the halfpipe.

From the bobsledding niece of an MLB player to the daughter of Olympic rowers, a number of this year's Winter Olympians have been propelled by athletically accomplished relatives. But 'propelled' doesn't always mean 'pressured.'

The American ski great scattered some of the ashes of her grandfather, who served during the Korean War, on a rock that she was told was special when she visited South Korea last year to be named a Pyeongchang Olympic ambassador.

Their victory over long-time rival Canada capped a year that started with the threat of a boycott to secure more money and the same kind of treatment that US Hockey gives to the men's team.

The 2018 Games represent a wider spectrum of humanity than ever before. That’s particularly true in women’s bobsledding – in which four of the top five teams in Pyeongchang included at least one black athlete.