Sports news and the business, rules and legacies behind the games.
The 2026 World Cup was the first with 48 teams and 104 matches. It broke attendance and scoring records and gave small nations a stage, while critics said the third-place table diluted the group stage. Spain won the final.
Nine months after the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Milan's athletes' village houses students and the IOC calls the spread-out model a success. The costly Cortina sliding track, damaged after the Games, is the legacy still being tested.
Padel is expanding fast: courts, clubs and players have multiplied, and it made its Asian Games debut in 2026. But player estimates range from 19 million to 40 million, and no study proves it is the world's fastest-growing sport.
