Olympics

Given that his city is currently hosting the Olympics, London mayor Boris Johnson is riding high … literally. On Wednesday, the eccentric public official rode a zip line in Victoria Park to promote the summer games. There’s just one problem — he got stuck. No, this isn’t an episode of ‘The Benny Hill Show.’ This is for real.

We have all heard of boxers throwing a fight to make a big payday with the bookies, but now it appears as if badminton players are involved in the same racket — and it’s getting them tossed out of the Olympics.

Michael Phelps has managed to swim into history.

The games of the XXX Olympiad begin Friday in London. NBC, which is broadcasting an unprecedented 5,535 hours of the Summer Olympics on TV and online, is hoping Americans will be glued to their screens over the next couple weeks. But will they?

Already one of the fastest women in America, Allyson Felix is ready to take on the world at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Olympic taekwondo may not be as popular as, say, swimming or track and field, but its athletes are just as motivated. Take Diana Lopez, for example, a fierce competitor in the sport who hopes to soon add gold to her 2008 bronze medal win in Beijing.

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius is already a champion.

As the athletes get ready for the London Olympics, organizers are also preparing their best theatrics for the opening ceremony.

While soccer isn’t nearly as popular here as it is in other parts of the world, it seems to get its due in the US during the Olympics, at least. And when the women’s national soccer team won gold after a hotly-contested battle against Brazil at the 2008 Games in Beijing, its members became superstars.

It’s not uncommon for two siblings to excel at the same sport growing up, and for some select few that excellence can translate into Olympic success.