Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs was recently playing for France in an attempt to qualify his national team for the 2009 Euroleague Championship. During an exhibition game, Parker suffered a bruised thigh and a minor ankle injury. After flying back to San Antonio to get his ankle looked at by doctors in San Antonio, the Spurs confirmed that his ankle injury is minor.
Parker will remain in San Antonio to begin his rehab. He’s expected to return to Europe next week — as long as his rehab goes well.
France’s first qualifying game is August 5th against Italy. Parker has …read more

This weekend, the world’s best figure skaters gathered in Everett Washington (outside of Seattle) for the 2008 Skate America competition, the first ISU Grand Prix event of the 2008/2009 season. Below are the winning performances:
Ice Dancing: the Gold Medal went to Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder (France), whose winning performance is featured below. Taking the Silver Medal were Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto of the United States. Sinead Kerr and John Kerr of the United States finished in third place.

The mens individual Gold went to Takahiko Kozuka of Japan. Johnny Weir of the United States won the Silver and Evan …read more

France, who has hosted the Winter Olympic Games three times, announced today that they are putting together a bid for the 2018 Games. Under consideration are the cities of Annecy, Nice, and Grenoble. The 1924 Winter Games were held in Chamonix, the 1968 Games in Grenoble, and the 1992 Games in Albertville (pictured above).
France intends to announce their candidate city in early 2009. They have at least one rival. Munich Germany has already announced her plans to bid for the 2018 Games.
(photo © Newscom)

The men’s individual gymnastics competition concluded on Tuesday. The Chinese made a strong showing, seizing three of the four individual Gold Medals. Below are the results:
In the horizontal bar, Zou Kai of China earned the Gold Medal. Jonathon Horton of the United States took the Silver Medal and Fabian Hambuechen of Germany took the Bronze.
On the parallel bars, Li Xiaoping of China earned the Gold Medal. Yoo Wonchui of South Korea earned the Silver and Anton Fokin of Uzebekistan earned the Bronze.
On the vault, Leszek Blanik of Poland took the Gold Medal, Thomas Bouhil of France earned the Silver and …read more

Vincent Hancock, 19, of the United States became the second member of the US Army Marksmanship Unit to win a Gold Medal in shooting at the Beijing Games when he won the skeet shooting event on Friday. Hancock hit 121 of 125 targets in the qualifying round and a perfect 25/25 in the final. He tied with Norway’s Tore Brovold in the competition, but won when Brovold missed one of his targets in the shoot-off. Anthony Terras of France won the Bronze Medal.
Glenn Eller of the United States, also of the US Army Marksmanship Unit, won Gold in the double …read more

Michael Phelps continues to be the most popular and fascinating story from the Water Cube, but he is far from the only story. Below is a summary of what happened at the National Aquatic Center on Friday. Sunday concludes the swimming competition.

Great Britain\’s Rebecca Adlington won Gold in the long distance swimming race, the women\’s 800m freestyle, giving her country its first Gold Medal in that event in more than 80 years. She won with a world record time of 8:14.10, breaking the record set by Janet Evans in 1989. Adlington was followed by Alessia Filippi of Italy for …read more

Team Britain, composed of Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, and Jamie Staff, won the first short track cycling event of the Beijing Games on Friday, besting Team France in the three-lap event. Germany, the defending Gold Medalists, earned the Bronze Medal.

France’s Laure Manaudou announced yesterday that she’s “taking a break” from swimming after she failed to qualify for the finals in the 200m backstroke event. This follows her last place finish in the 400m freestyle event earlier in the week, an event in which she won the Gold Medal in Athens in 2004. She also finished 7th in the 100m backstroke event this week.
Manaudou, 22, has been a favorite of the French tabloid press this past year. She broke with long-time coach Phillipe Lucas last year to move to Turin and train with her then-boyfriend/fiance, fellow swimmer, Luca Martin. …read more

Michael Phelps didn’t compete in a final this morning in Beijing, but there was still plenty of action. Below are the results:

China’s Liu Zige won the women’s 200m butterfly event with a world record time of 2:04.18. She was followed by her teammate, Jiao Liuyang for the Silver Medal and Australia’s Jessicah Schipper for the Bronze.

Stephanie Rice and the Australian team prevailed in the women’s 4×200m freestyle relay, with a world record time of 7:44.31. The Chinese women (Yang Yu, Zhu Qianwel, Tan Miao, Pang Jiaying) earned the Silver Medal and the United States (Allison Schmitt, Natalie Coughlin, Caroline Burckle, …read more

Don’t talk “trash” to the US men’s swimming team; you’ll only inspire them. That’s what the French swimmers learning Monday when the US men snatched the Gold from the favored French team by just .08 seconds.
For days, French swimmer, Alain Bernard had been saying that they were in Beijing to “smash” the Americans. They had reason to be cocky. Most sources picked the Gallic group–or perhaps the Australians–for the Gold Medal.
That’s before Michael Phelps and company hit the pool. Swimming just over an hour after his swim in the 200m freestyle semifinals, Phelps led the Americans for the …read more