UKRAINE'S Lyudmila Blonska as expected was stripped of her Olympic heptathlon silver medal the highest-profile athlete kicked out of the Beijing Games for doping.

BEIJING, China (Aug. 25) - The Olympic torch has already begun its journey from Beijing to Vancouver for the highly anticipated start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, now just 536 days away. For Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, CA) of the U.S. Women's Alpine Ski Team, Feb. 12, 2010 can't come fast enough.

Michael Phelps is going to London to be a part of Sunday's handoff ceremony from Beijing to the 2012 Olympic organizers. Good for him. It's a far classier post-Olympic move than going to, say, Disney World.

We now know about the lip-syncing girl singer at the Opening Ceremony and the enchanced fireworks. What's next, faking the ages of half the women's gymnastics team?

The U.S. men won their first volleyball match of the 2008 Games without head coach Hugh McCutcheon, who will be gone indefinitely after the tragic knife attack that killed his father-in-law and critically injured his mother-in-law.

Even as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin happily waved down to his nation's Olympic delegation during last night's Opening Ceremony, he was sending troops and tanks to attack Georgia.