Australia, one of the world’s leading sports nations, has so far not lived up to its own expectations at the London 2012 Olympics. This has caused serious public debate and prompted the president of the Australian Olympic Committee to call for giving school sports a higher priority. In this comment piece Bonita Mersiades agrees, but not for the rationale of winning medals.

The claim that Olympic medals won by Canadian athletes will inspire increased sports participation by Canadians is not clearly supported by statistics. In this comment, Peter Donnelly looks at the legacy of mass participation and how this might be accomplished.

A new prognosis suggests a major shift of power in elite sport as China seems to be on its way to being the undisputed best performing nation in the Olympic Summer Games in London.

In response to recent tragic incidents involving football and handball referees in Europe, Christer Ahl, former President of the International Handball Federation’s Playing Rules and Referees Commission, calls for new reforms within sports federations to attend to elite referees’ wellbeing by creating support networks to help them deal with their increasingly demanding profession.

Too many young people offer too much in the pursuit of gymnastic success, says Bruno Grandi, President of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) who worries that many young athletes lead imbalanced lives because of too hard training and risk of burning out before the age of 20.

Representatives of 26 European players associations have issued a statement on curruption in sport at a conference organised by UNI europa and the European Elite Athletes Association.

Year in, year out, governments at all levels and corporate bodies spend billions of naira on Sports Development. But there is little, or nothing to show for their huge investment. Olukayode Thomas reports that, unless President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua declares a state of emergency in sports, Nigeria, a country teeming with talented athletes in all areas of sports, will continue to play second fiddle to other nations at global championships.