Feed: NYT > Juliet Macur - AggScore: 92

The economic crisis made its first obvious mark on American professional sports Friday when a major cycling event and Nascar announced substantial changes because of financial woes.

The Agency for Cycling Ethics, the company in charge of the internal antidoping testing programs for several top teams, quietly closed its doors last week after about two years in business.

As the world’s spotlight fell on Barack Obama, officials from Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics knew exactly what was at hand: the best free advertisement they could dream of.

David Fandila finished the New York City Marathon saying never before had his body felt so abused, so achy. Considering his profession, that is remarkable.

This year’s group of elite women runners in the New York City Marathon is among the oldest in the race’s history.

Race directors are looking for ways to make their marathons even bigger, while somehow maintaining a safe and enjoyable experience for runners.

Professional cycling faced a bleak day in Germany on Thursday when the country's biggest multistage race was canceled and two main national broadcasting outlets said they were dropping their live coverage of the Tour de France because doping scandals continue to mar the sport. The announcements from the Tour of Germany and the ARD and ZDF networks came less than a day after the Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl admitted to using CERA, a new generation of the blood-booster EPO.

Officials from the United States Olympic Committee said that they would cut the organization’s 2009 budget in response to the global financial crisis.

The International Olympic Committee said it would retest blood samples collected from athletes at the Beijing Games to check for a new blood-boosting drug most often used by endurance athletes.

Lance Armstrong will return to professional cycling in late January in Australia, as planned, nearly two weeks before he is eligible to race under antidoping rules, the International Cycling Federation said Wednesday. The cycling federation, or U.C.I., cleared Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner, to race Jan. 20-25 in the Tour Down Under. Without that waiver, Armstrong would not have been able to race until Feb. 1, six months after he filed paperwork with the United States Anti-Dopi...

The United States Olympic Committee announced on Thursday that Larry Probst, a former video-game company executive, had been elected as its new chairman.

All six members of the Chinese women’s gymnastics team met the age requirements to compete at the Beijing Olympics, officials from the International Gymnastics Federations said Wednesday.

The French antidoping agency challenged Lance Armstrong to prove that he did not use performance-enhancing drugs when he won the 1999 Tour de France.

The United States Olympic Committee’s directors will choose a replacement for its chairman, Peter Ueberroth, who began a new era for the organization.

Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, who has suggested that Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs, criticized Armstrong’s antidoping program.