When Jean-Luc Baker was born with a club foot, a doctor gave his parents a grim prognosis.

"He said I would never walk and that I would have a lot of trouble throughout my whole life with it, and they weren't vibing with that," said Baker, who grew up in Edmonds and graduated from Kamiak High school. "They were like, 'No way.' "

No way, indeed...Read more

Flying chartered is a luxury often reserved for rock stars and royalty. But China’s approach to Covid, with officials determined to stamp out the virus, means that most of the 3,000 or so skiers, snowboarders, skaters and bobsleigh riders descending on Beijing for the Winter Olympics next month will be arriving on specially arranged flights.

...Read more

NEW YORK — COVID-19 protocols will keep NBC Sports’ play-by-play teams from reporting on the scene at the Winter Olympic games in Beijing next month.

Greg Hughes, senior vice president of communications for the NBC Sports Group, said Wednesday that the announcing teams will be based at the sports division’s studios in Stamford, Conn., ...Read more

Beyond omicron and gold medal tallies, athletes arriving in China’s capital for the Winter Games next month may have one more thing to worry about: Is it safe to access the internet?

Beijing has promised the world’s top athletes access to a partially unfettered internet during the Olympics starting Feb. 4, dropping the Great Firewall that ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — At 14, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito is too young to compete in next month’s Winter Olympics.

But she recently set herself up to be the future of women’s skating by winning the bronze medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tenn.

Levito, who was born in Philadelphia, lives in Mount Holly, N...Read more

Deon Lendore, a sprinter who won a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, died Monday.

The 29-year old, who raced for Trinidad and Tobago, was involved in a automobile collision in Texas.

Lendore, an assistant coach at Texas A&M, was driving home from practice at the time of the three-car crash, the university said.

Lendore made three ...Read more

She’s gonna be bored.

A gold-medalist snowboarder has decided to quarantine for three weeks in Beijing instead of getting a COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Patrizia Kummer of Switzerland has not been vaccinated for “personal reasons,” according to a Tuesday statement from Switzerland’s ski federation.

“After my ...Read more

Newly crowned U.S. ice dance champions Madison Chock of Redondo Beach and Evan Bates were nominated to the U.S. Olympic team on Sunday, the final day of the U.S. championships in Nashville. The Beijing Games will be their third Olympic appearance as a couple and the fourth for Bates, who competed at the 2010 Games with a different partner. He ...Read more

Japan won’t send any government representatives to the Beijing Olympics next year, effectively throwing its support behind the U.S.-led diplomatic boycott of the games.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno announced Friday that Japan would dispatch three non-governmental officials. The move comes after growing pressure from conservatives ...Read more

NHL players will not represent their respective homelands in the men’s hockey tournament at the Beijing Olympics, their participation in the Winter Games becoming the latest casualty of a COVID-19 resurgence that has ravaged rosters and scrambled schedules of sports teams and leagues around the world.

The NHL, NHL Players' Association and ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Faced with the prospect of long quarantine periods should they test positive for COVID-19 during the Olympics, NHL players reached the decision to pull out of the Beijing Games.

The league and its players association reached the agreement Tuesday, multiple news outlets reported, with an official announcement from the NHL ...Read more

From Southern California to Northeast Ohio, many watched Jamal Hill swim, but few actually saw him.

Hill is 6 feet 4 with a toothy grin, a lean torso and long, thin arms and legs ideal for propelling him through water as a world-class freestyler. When Hill walked in a room or pulled away from competitors in the pool, no one saw anything amiss. ...Read more

South Korea broke from its U.S. ally and won’t be joining the American-led diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, citing a need for China’s help in denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday during a visit to Australia that his government was “not considering” the boycott. The ...Read more

It makes sense that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics could play a major role in helping surfing and skateboarding earn regular spots in the Summer Games.

The prototypical Southern California pastimes recently made their Olympic debut in Tokyo and will be included on the "additional" list in Paris three years from now. On Thursday, Olympic ...Read more

The United States announced the latest in a longstanding tradition of political boycotts at the Olympics when White House press secretary Jen Psaki this week said U.S. diplomats would not attend the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing next year.

The decision, Psaki said, came due to concerns about “the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in...Read more

Australia will join the U.S.-led diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to protest China’s alleged human rights abuses, in a move set to further worsen relations between the two countries.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s move makes Australia the first major country to follow the U.S. in deciding against sending officials to the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Monday it will diplomatically boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics in protest of the Chinese government’s ongoing human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region.

American athletes still will be allowed to participate in the Olympics, which will run from Feb. 4-20.

“We will not send any ...Read more