College sports leaders seeking antitrust and other protections from Congress have a potential bargaining chip: School assurances that they will provide funding for their increasingly imperiled Olympic programs, by far the biggest pipeline of talent for Team USA.

USA Gymnastics president and CEO Li Li Leung is stepping down at the end of the year.

The U.S. Olympic team is one of a handful that will supply air conditioners for their athletes at the Paris Games in a move that undercuts organizers’ plans to cut carbon emissions.

Changes are coming at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, sparked by frustration with years of flat revenue and what some portray as heavy-handed management in the wake of sex-abuse scandals that upended the movement in America.

The U.S. Olympic top doctor says all of the 200-plus athletes heading to Beijing for the Olympics next month are fully vaccinated, and not a single one asked for a medical exemption.

The U.S. Olympic team’s airline partner will charter a flight from Los Angeles to Beijing to bring about half the American athletes to the Winter Olympics.

U.S. athletes trying to make the Winter Olympics will have to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 under a directive announced Wednesday by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

In a way, the massive upheaval that has upended the U.S. Olympic world over the past five years reached its crescendo in the moment Simone Biles shockingly called it a night during the gymnastics team finals.

About 100 of the 613 U.S. athletes descending on Tokyo for the Olympics are unvaccinated, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s medical chief said hours before Friday night’s Opening Ceremony.

The head of the U_S_ Olympic and Paralympic Committee is telling Congress that a boycott of the Beijing Olympics next year will not solve any geopolitical issues with China and will only place athletes training for the games under a “cloud of uncertainty.”.

It’s a response to a set of recommendations from a USOPC athlete group that seeks changes to the much-maligned Rule 50 of the IOC Olympic Charter, which prohibits inside-the-lines protests at the games. The IOC has defended the rule, explaining that political statements have no place inside the competition venues at the Olympics. The USOPC established a handful of working groups led by athletes who tackled different aspects of social injustice in the Olympic movement and society in general. The USOPC says it won't discipline athletes for “respectful” and “peaceful” demonstrations, and Hirshland said, “I can't imagine that kneeling or raising a fist would be considered" inappropriate. The IOC has sent a survey to athletes across the globe for their opinions on Rule 50 and other issues.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)DENVER – U.S. Olympic hopefuls will be able to cut their own deals with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee's marketing partners under a first-of-its-kind plan that has potential to shift the top-heavy sponsorship model that rules the Olympic world. The USOPC unveiled a program Tuesday called AMP —- Athlete Marketing Program — which will give potential Olympians three ways of connecting with the federation's sponsors. The third part allows athletes to sign separate endorsement deals with USOPC sponsors. The Olympics have long used the rule to restrict marketing opportunities for athletes, essentially forbidding them from marketing themselves during the games with companies whose brands compete with Olympic sponsors. There's value in that an athlete's own marketing arrangement can be different from what our organization delivers” in its own marketing deals.

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2020, file photo, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Los Angeles 2028 organizers in Beverly Hills, Calif. Even before the coronavirus pandemic wiped the Summer Olympics off the 2020 sports calendar, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee was an organization in peril. “Last year I talked about evolution and ‘Jurassic Park,’” chair Susanne Lyons said, in a nod to the changes the USOPC had embarked upon, pre-COVID. College sports teams supplied the U.S. with about 75% of its roster at the 2016 Summer Games. The Summer Olympics are nine months away, with a Winter Games set for February 2022, and the Los Angeles Games — the first Summer Games in America in a generation — scheduled for 2028.

The USOPC on Monday released its annual tax form, which showed $54 million more in expenses than revenues for 2019 a typical overrun in a non-Olympic year following a Winter Games. In the refashioned 2019 Impact Report, the USOPC included sports benefit statements for 61 NGBs it oversees. In the past, the USOPC tax form would list the amount of direct support in the form of grants it provided each organization. As an example, by looking only at the line item on the tax form, it can easily be seen that the USOPC gave USA Gymnastics $2.22 million in grant funding last year. In other areas, the USOPC increased funding to the U.S. Center for SafeSport by $3 million, to $7.5 million, in 2019.

It is significant, CEO Sarah Hirshland wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Olympic stakeholders and obtained by The Associated Press. These are the most drastic cuts since 2009, when the federation laid off 54 employees to handle recession-related shortfalls. Though the Olympic Training Centers have served fewer athletes over the years, they still offer housing and training for hundreds, including those from about a dozen sports that have their full-time training facilities there. The USOPC brought in $172 million in broadcast rights after the last Summer Olympics (2016), and stands to receive as much or more if the Tokyo Games take place next year. Without those funds, however, the USOPC has to scramble to make it through another year.