An artist’s impression of the proposed facilities in east London for the Olympic games in 2012. Photograph: Andrew Hilton/Hayes Davidson/PA
The organisers of the 2012 London Olympics face the toughest economic circumstances outside of a state of war to put on the games, an influential member of the International Olympic Committee has said.
Kevan Gosper, an [...]

Barnsley’s Iain Hume. Photograph: Daniel Hambury/Empics Sport/PA Photos
The Barnsley striker Iain Hume was last night readmitted to hospital two weeks after fracturing his skull in the derby game against Sheffield United. The 25-year-old Canada international was released from hospital seven days ago and has since been recovering at home, but spent last night at Salford [...]

AZ Alkmaar and Ajax thrash around in the snow during their Dutch league match. Photograph: Olaf Kraak/EPA
Rather than tackling pertinent problems such as video-replays for referees on offside goals, football’s executives think it best to distract us by solving non-issues on the periphery of the sport instead. National B-squads for example. Once a fixture of [...]

Alan Pardew departed The Valley after a stinker against Sheffield United. Photograph: Daniel Hambury/EMPICS Sport/PA Photos
What wasn’t to like about the weekend? Australia’s rugby league players were thrashed by the Kiwis in the World Cup final, temperatures across the country soared to a balmy –37C and Oasis finally broke America by standing behind Ricky Hatton [...]

Lin Wen Tang celebrates after winning the Hong Kong Open golf tournament. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP
Chinese Taipei’s Lin Wen-tang bounced back from a final-hole blunder to edge a thrilling play-off and win the Hong Kong Open — his first victory on the European Tour. The Asian Tour regular missed a birdie putt from six feet on [...]

Ricky Hatton with his trainer Floyd Mayweather Snr. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA
Ricky Hatton was rightly pleased with an improved performance in beating Paulie Malignaggi and restoring much of his reputation.
But it’s way too early to get carried away. Victory at the MGM Grand Arena this morning over an opponent whose tricks evaporated under sustained pressure keeps [...]

The decline and fall of William Gallas, ex-Arsenal captain. Photographs: Lee Mills/Action Images (whose entire portfolio seems to show Gallas in distress).
3pm: Peeps ring out across the country and We. Are. Go.
2.50pm: It’s a shambles. Again. We just had a power failure here on two computers and a telly, which means Paolo Bandini is having [...]

The four faces of contemporary male modelling: Derek Zoolander (pose: Blue Steel), Tom Lutz (???), Scott Murray (???) and Carlos Tevez (WTF?). Photographs: Melinda Sue Gordon/Christian Sinibaldi/Sam Frost/Tom Jenkins
Some links
• Some footage the two Serbian wunderfoetii apparently set to join Manchester United
• Highlights of a classic encounter between these sides in 1994, infused with genuine [...]

Liverpool’s Andrea Dossena and Diego Cavalieri collide at White Hart Lane during another miserable performance. Photograph: Tom Hevezi/AP
Thanks for all your submissions for the third round of Big Blogger 2008. We had nearly 100 entries this week, but - surprisingly - the standard was the lowest so far. We were hoping for ballsy comment, originality [...]

Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP
Australia led by 189 runs at the end of the second day of the first Test against New Zealand at the Gabba, but again struggled with the bat on a day when 16 wickets fell. The hosts were reduced to 131 for six at stumps having dismissed New [...]