Sports

Antoine Dupont of France in action, July 24, 2024. DYLAN MARTINEZ / REUTERS Star France scrum-half Antoine Dupont will make his return to the team to face Ireland in the opening match for the Six Nations tournament in Stade de France on Thursday, February 5, after head coach Fabien Galthié on Tuesday named him captain. Dupont has not played for France since tearing his cruciate knee ligament against Ireland in March during last year's Six Nations tournament. The 29-year-old made his competitive return after eight months out for club side Toulouse in November. Anthony Jelonch has been given the nod at No 8 with Gregory Alldritt dropped from the squad, while Théo Attissogbe comes in at right wing with France's record try-scorer Damian Penaud axe...

Preparations for the first curling competition are made at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. DAVID J. PHILLIP / AP Agents from the divisive US immigration enforcement agency ICE will have no operational role in the Winter Olympics, Italy's interior minister said Wednesday, February 4, two days before the Milan-Cortina Games open. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arm will operate within US diplomatic missions only, "are not operational agents" and "have no executive function," Matteo Piantedosi told parliament. He said the outrage over their presence, which included the Milan mayor warning they were not welcome in the city during the February 6-22 Games, was "completely ...

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAERT / AP Italy has thwarted a series of Russian cyberattacks targeting the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the foreign minister said Wednesday, February 4, as security operations ramp up with just hours to go. Political leaders, including US Vice President JD Vance, are expected to attend Friday's opening ceremony, and security has become a fraught topic after it emerged that agents from ICE, the controversial US immigration enforcement agency, would be present. Italy's interior minister Matte...

United States' Lindsey Vonn attends a press conference by the US ski team at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, February 3, 2026. FATIMA SHBAIR / AP US ski star Lindsey Vonn said Tuesday, February 3, that she thinks she can compete at the Winter Olympics despite rupturing a knee ligament while crashing out in her most recent World Cup race. Vonn's Olympic comeback, at the age of 41 and with a titanium implant in her right knee, is one of the storylines of the Milan-Cortina Games. But she was nearly forced to drop out of the Games after losing her balance and crashing into the netting in the World Cup downhill in Crans Montana, Switzerland, on Friday and damaging her other knee. "Last Friday in Crans Montan...

Skiers on ski jumps slopes, ahead of the French Alps 2030 Winter Olympic Games, at the Courchevel Olympic ski jump site, on January 30, 2026. ALEX MARTIN / AFP The embattled organising team for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps needs to speed up work and pull together, the senior Olympic official overseeing the preparations said on Tuesday, February 3. Pierre-Olivier Beckers, the head of the International Olympic Committee's coordination commission for the 2030 Games, said at an IOC Session ahead of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games that preparations were "behind schedule." Beckers, a Belgian aristocrat, conceded that the French team had a shorter preparation time than in other Winter Olympics, having only begun work i...

Olympic gold medalist at the Beijing Games in 2022 and five-time world ice dance champion as part of a duo, Gabriella Papadakis reached the pinnacle of her sport at age 26. The French skater, who bid farewell to competition in 2024, looks back on her athletic career and her journey as a woman in a book, Pour ne pas disparaître ("So as Not to Disappear"). In it, she paints an unflattering portrait of her former partner, Guillaume Cizeron, who was crowned European champion on January 17 with his new partner, Laurence Fournier Beaudry. Before the book's release, Cizeron condemned it, saying it "contains false information, attributing to me, among other things, statements I never made and that I consider serious." I wouldn't be here if… … If my mother hadn't been ...

Snow cannons are used to prepare ski slopes and ski jumping hills in Livigno, Italy, December 26, 2025. MATTIA OZBOT/GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP Excess has found its way into a corner of paradise. In Livigno, the Santa Maria Nascente church has towered for centuries over traditional chalets, former farms, restaurants and small shops. Its architectural harmony preserves the authenticity of this large village, which is perched on the border of Italy and Switzerland and nicknamed "Little Tibet" for its harsh winters at 1,800 meters above sea level. With the Milan Cortina Olympic Games – running from February 6 to 22 – that harmony has been disrupted. A steel structure 55 meters high and 180 meters long, where athletes will defy gravity, has been erected at the entran...

A worker in front of the Paris 2024 Olympic Village construction site, which straddles the towns and cities of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, L'Ile-Saint-Denis and Saint-Denis. February 27, 2024. IAN LANGSDON/AFP A complex web of companies, front men, undeclared and undocumented workers and a main contractor claiming to have seen nothing all allegedly converged in the construction of an Olympic Village, where athletes from around the world gathered for one of the biggest international sporting events in summer 2024. While the Paris Olympic Games are now just a memory, a trial concerning such dealings opened at the courthouse in Bobigny, near the French capital, on Monday, February 2. It is scheduled to run until February 20. During the proceedings, 21 individuals an...

As its name suggests, the FIFA World Cup is meant to be a universal event, a major popular celebration – at least in theory. The 2026 edition, scheduled from June 11 to July 19 in Mexico, Canada and above all the United States – where 78 of the 104 matches will be played – seems to be taking a very different path. Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policies have complicated preparations for the tournament and have generated widespread anxiety about how it will be held. Within this context, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has been notably silent and has withstood the MAGA leader's decisions without protest –as if he were a powerless bystander to the preparations for an event he is supposedly overseeing. The FIFA chief has repeatedly promoted this as the ...

US' Lindsey Vonn reacts after crashing as she competes in the women's downhill race part of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup 2025-2026, in Crans Montana, Switzerland, on January 30, 2026. FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP US skier Lindsey Vonn insisted her dream of competing at next week's Winter Olympics was not over despite a crash during the Crans-Montana downhill event on Friday, January 30. "I crashed today in the downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee," the 41-year-old American ski racer said on social media. "My Olympic dream is not over." Vonn, the 2010 Olympic downhill champion and one of the most recognisable faces in world sport, lost control on a turn and skidded out into the safety netting during Friday's race, the final downhill ...