China

Canadian athletes should expect better funding from the government to ensure a good showing if Toronto hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic games, a former Canadian Olympian has said.

While Beijing sprayed its grass green to impress Olympic Games inspectors, Toronto is about to greet the officials with a thick blanket of new snow as it makes its pitch to host the 2008 Summer Games.

Organisers of the 2005 world athletics championships said on Thursday they are not concerned that London mayor Ken Livingstone has refused to sign a contract with the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF).

France's world-beating soccer team will come out on Tuesday in support of Paris's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Support in China for its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games is overwhelming among its people, according to a poll.

A cabinet minister and kimono-clad young women turned out to greet Olympics inspectors when they arrived on Sunday in Japan's western metropolis Osaka to evaluate its bid to stage the 2008 Summer Games.

China bid farewell to Olympic Games inspectors on Sunday, brushing off human rights concerns and vowing to make Beijing the clean, green and modern city it promised in its bid to host the 2008 Games.

As Olympic inspectors weigh up Beijing's bid for the 2008 Games, Chinese and foreign sponsors are itching to cash in on the first ever Olympics in the world's most populous nation. For more on this see FEATURES section of sportbusiness.com.

Asian sports broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) has acquired the exclusive terrestrial, cable and satellite television broadcast rights of the English Premier League for the next three seasons beginning August 2001.

China has sentenced an activist to two years in a labour camp for urging the International Olympic Committee to use Beijing's bid for the 2008 Games to press Chinese authorities to free jailed democracy activists.

On the first day of an Olympic inspection of Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Games, Mayor Liu Qi has sought to shake off the city's dark past and present a new image of democracy, openness and prosperity. Read the rest of this article in the FEATURES section of sportbusiness.com.

With Tiananmen Square sealed off to thwart possible protests, Beijing has declared itself ready for an Olympic inspection of its bid to stage the Games in 2008. For the full story see the FEATURES section of sportbusiness.com.

China's banned Zhong Gong meditation group issued an appeal on Monday to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to press Beijing to release its jailed leaders, a Hong Kong`-based human rights group said.

China urged International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates arriving on Monday to assess Beijing's bid for the 2008 Games to focus on its credentials as a "sports superpower of 1.2 billion people", not its human rights record.

Visions of beach volleyball or memories of burning bodies on Tiananmen Square? Bizarre as they may sound, these images could make or break Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. See the FEATURES section of sportbusiness.com for the full story.

China have barred transfers of their soccer players to foreign clubs this year to ensure they are available for World Cup qualifiers, said a China Football Association spokesman.