Zhangjiakou (China) (AFP) - China's proposed Winter Olympics co-host boasts pristine ski slopes carpeted with artificial snow, but the city once dubbed the country's "fur capital" is also home to tens of thousands of caged rabbits and mink bred for their skins.

The Chinese bid, the favourite to win the right to host the 2022 games on Friday, combines ice sports in Beijing with skiing events in Zhangjiakou, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of the capital.

Described by the bid committee as "ideal for snow sports", the city was better known for producing furs under the Qing dynasty that ended a century ago and the industry still employs at least 70,000 people in the area.

It will generate more than five billion yuan ($800 million) of business this year, provincial officials say, and includes more than 1,500 firms processing pelts into products.

The Zhangjiakou city government, which subsidises the sector, said on its website the breeding of fur animals has reached a "high water mark", with new projects emerging as fast as "bamboo shoots after spring rain".

On one farm on the city's outskirts, hundreds of mink, rabbits and foxes were packed into rows of wire cages barely large enough for them to pace around.

Several of them had empty water bowls when AFP visited in baking summer heat, with faeces piled up beneath the cages while a foetid smell hung in the air.

"Zhangjiakou is a famous place for fur production," said owner Wang Yonglin. "We breed the animals ourselves. It has been very lucrative." 

'Warm and fashionable'  

Prospects for fur makers seemed bleak in the 1990s, as a backlash over animal cruelty led some countries to ban production and supermodels posed with the slogan "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur".

But today mink and fox fur are regulars at the world's top fashion shows and the global trade is worth more than $40 billion, according to industry estimates.

China has emerged as the world's biggest exporter of fur clothing and accessories, a boon to European raw material suppliers such as Denmark, where a third of exports to Asia's largest economy are skins.

Europe produced 41.2 million mink in 2014, according to industry group Fur Europe, whose spokesman Mick Madsen told AFP: "As a general rule, 80 percent of European fur production goes to China".

Most firms in the Zhangjiakou area are manufacturers using pelts from elsewhere, although one of its fur farms boasts 32,000 rabbits.

The Yangyuan International Fur City mall in the municipality describes itself as a "goldmine for wealthy fur traders" and has more than 30,000 square metres (36,000 square yards) of floor space packed with shops selling mink coats and fox scarves. 

Next door a government-funded museum celebrates the industry's history, dating back to prehistoric times.

Both Zhangjiakou's mayor and its more powerful Communist Party secretary have visited the mall, and its CEO Felix Wang said it was "packed" with buyers from China and abroad during the winter peak season.

"Chinese people love to wear mink," he said. "First because it's warm and secondly because it's fashionable."

'Torturing' animals 

Animal rights groups widely oppose the fur industry, and have shot footage apparently showing animals in European fur farms that have eaten each other's tails, or live on piles of excrement.

The Spanish parent company of high street chain Zara said in February it had stopped selling angora garments after campaign group PETA released videos of Chinese fur farm employees apparently pulling out hair from screeching live rabbits.

China has no laws protecting non-endangered animals, although industry regulations state that cages for mink should be well cleaned and at least 60 centimetres (24 inches) long, 30 cm wide and 45 cm high.

European fur firms "have moved production to China to serve their interests, exploiting the lack of animal protection laws and low consciousness of animal protection", said Zhang Yuanyuan of ACT Asia's China office, part of the country's small but growing animal protection movement.

"I hope if awarded the Winter Olympics Zhangjiakou will take the opportunity to change and reform this cruel industry," she said.

Producers in the city insisted their fur came from animals that have been killed before being skinned, usually by electrocution or lethal injection, and farm owner Wang said the business differed little from the meat industry.

PETA Asia's vice president Jason Baker said having the Olympics in Zhangjiakou could "help modernise the city while doing away with an industry that profits from suffering". 

"I think both the International Olympic Committee and the Chinese government know that there is no future in the fur industry," he added.

But local officials see both the fur trade and Olympics as opportunities for development, and Wang described the games as "a great opportunity for us".

"This county was poor 30 years ago, now there are BMWs everywhere," he said. "Holding the Olympics will encourage more people to come here and buy fur."

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NFL Pro Bowler Jason Pierre-Paul hasn't communicated with New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin since having his right index finger amputated because of a fireworks accident, Coughlin told SI's Jenny Vrentas.

Coughlin says he first heard about the incident Sunday afternoon July 5, one day after the accident occurred, and texted Pierre-Paul, "How can I help you?"

Three and-a-half weeks later, Pierre-Paul still hasn't responded, he told Vrentas.

"I want to help. I want to be there for him," Coughlin said. "But he’s decided that he doesn’t want our help. He thinks that something will come of it. But, all I care about, all any of us care about, the whole organization, is the well-being of the kid."

Pierre-Paul initially injured his hand July 4 in a fireworks-related accident. In addition to having to get his right index finger amputated, he also suffered a fractured thumb. Despite the severity of Pierre-Paul's injuries, they aren't believed to be career-threatening and he is expected to play at some point this season.

Two Giants officials — team trainer Ronnie Barnes and special assistant Jessie Armstead — attempted to meet with Pierre-Paul while he was in the hospital. The former first round pick, however, refused to see them. This still irks Coughlin, and has led the Giants head coach to believe Pierre-Paul and his camp may be attempting to hide something from the team.

"I don’t know what he thought he was going to accomplish by not allowing them to be there to assist, to help, whatever needed to be done," Coughlin said. "I thought that was a really poor move by them. By his people. I don’t know what they think they are hiding. It only makes us, me personally, think the worst."

Giants owner John Mara described the fact that the team has yet to establish any communication and meet with Pierre-Paul as "very disappointing" when speaking with New York Post's Steve Serby and Paul Schwartz, and questioned the advice Pierre-Paul is getting from his inner circle.

"I don’t think JPP is receiving very good advice right now," Mara said. "He has told people that he’s fine and he’s going to be ready to play, but until we see the hand, we’re just not sure."

The Giants open training camp this Friday. Pierre-Paul, who technically is still not under contract with the team as a result of his refusal to sign his franchise tag, is not expected to attend. He reportedly won't sign his $14.8 million tender until he knows he can pass the team's physical, and be medically cleared to play, according to ESPN's Ed Werder.

If Pierre-Paul were to sign the one-year contract, and then fail his physical, the Giants would have the option to put him on the non-football injury list — forcing the defensive end to sit out at least the first six games of the season. Teams can elect not to pay players who are on the non-football injury list.

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A bizarre scene unfolded during game against the Padres when Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores started crying while in the field after a premature report broke that he had been traded.

The chaos began around the 7th inning when multiple reports broke stating that the Mets had agreed to a trade for Brewers All-Star center fielder Carlos Gomez.

It was quickly established that Flores was part of the deal and had been traded to the Brewers.

Typically, the player is pulled from the game in these situations. However, the Mets left Flores in the game to bat in the 7th and take the field in the 8th inning, after the reports that he had been traded. 

At some point, Flores heard he had been traded and started to break down crying when he went back out to the field.

“During the game I heard about I was getting traded,” Flores told the media after the game. “I got emotional and when I came in they told me I was not traded.”

Flores, who will be 24 in two weeks, has been in the Mets organization since he was signed out of Venezuela as a 16-year-old.

Soon after the initial reports and after Flores found out about the supposedly impending trade, more reports followed that the deal was in fact not done.

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson called it an “unfortunate situation” and told the media after the game that “social media got ahead of the facts” and that the trade “has not and will not transpire.”

What appears to have happened is that the two sides agreed to a trade during the game. These trades do not become official until all players go through a physical with their new team or the teams get a chance to review each player's medical history. Most of the time the trades go through without a hitch.

According to Tom Hadricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Mets backed out of this deal because of concerns about Gomez' hip.

“As it turns out, it was the Mets' concern over Gomez's hip that nixed his trade to the Mets, two sources told the Journal Sentinel early Thursday morning. Gomez missed time nine out of 12 games during one stretch in June with a hip issue but did not go on the DL with it and had played all but one game since June 23.”

Hadricourt also indicated that the Brewers may have been concerned about Zach Wheeler's Tommy John surgery which was more complicated than the typical version of the surgery many pitchers go through.

Either way, the deal is off and Flores is still with the only organization he has ever known.

You can see a full video of Flores getting emotional during the game here.

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The World Cup has ended but the tournament's top player, Carli Lloyd, has continued her hot streak since returning to her club team, the Houston Dash.

With the Dash and FC Kansas City tied at 2-2 in the 85th minute Wednesday, Lloyd drilled a 30-yard shot into the top corner to break the deadlock and give the Dash its second-straight win.

From long-range, Lloyd hit it perfectly:

Here's a closer look:

Of course, Lloyd is no stranger to long-range goals, having scored one from midfield to complete her hat trick against Japan in the World Cup Final. The Golden Ball winner has only continued her goal-scoring rampage, having scored in seven-straight games in all competitions — the first four coming from the World Cup, and the past three from club play.

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After missing out on DeAndre Jordan and losing most of their starting lineup from last season, the Dallas Mavericks don't figure to be very good this season, especially in the loaded Western Conference.

Mark Cuban said at the start of free agency that if the Dallas Mavericks didn't land a big-name free agent — which they basically didn't— they would tank this season.

However, as Cuban told Zach Lowe on "The Lowe Post," the Mavericks won't tank in the typical sense of the word.

"'Tank' is all relative, right?" Cuban said. "Because in the Western Conference, you can really play hard and do your best and still be in the lottery. And so, the whole concept was, if we didn't get Wes [Matthews] and we didn't get a key free agent, and [Deron Williams] in this particular case, among others, what would have been the best strategy for us?"

Cuban explains how the Mavericks looked at the Western Conference this season and figured if they didn't get a top free agent, they could still be a competitive team while getting a good pick in the lottery, due to the competitive nature of the conference.

Cuban said, "Metaphorically speaking, yeah, we would have tanked, but in reality, it would've been a completely different approach than what the teams that have been vying for top picks have been doing. It wouldn't have been a race to the bottom."

As Cuban noted, tanking, or foregoing wins to get a shot at the top pick in the draft, is not a sure-fire method for rebuilding. He makes a great point, stating that the point of tanking is to draft a superstar, but there's no guarantee that top draft picks will ever turn into a star that can lead a team to a championship.

"There's only one goal in rebuilding, and that's to get a superstar. And unfortunately, there's no direct path to getting a superstar. Some people say, 'Well you do it through the draft.' Well, every team has been drafting for a lot of years... Every team has drafted. Most teams have had decent draft picks over that period, and only, what, seven teams have won championships in 20 years?

"And so, it all comes down to how you get a superstar. Taking the draft path is no direct path to getting a superstar. Taking the trade route is no direct path to getting a superstar... So, there's trades and there's free agency. So there's three paths to get a superstar to start to build around. None of them are direct, all of them have risks."

Drafting in the NBA mostly comes down to luck. The San Antonio Spurs got Tim Duncan with the No. 1 pick and then nailed two late draft picks in later years in Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. The Oklahoma City Thunder got Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and James Harden in three consecutive years and shot right up into playoff contention.

Teams like the Philadelphia 76ers are trying to hedge that bet by accumulating as many high picks as possible and hoping that at least some of them turn into those franchise-changing players.

For Cuban and the Mavs, they nailed one pick in Dirk Nowitzki and have been finding other routes to build around him, as Cuban discusses with Lowe. However, the Mavs haven't advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2011, using each offseason to tinker with the team through trades and free agency. With Nowitzki quickly aging, it seems the Mavs will soon have to reconsider their methods and rebuild more organically.

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Days after the head of the International Olympic Committee identified Rio de Janeiro's polluted waterways as the No. 1 challenge facing the 2016 Olympics, an Associated Press investigation revealed just how dangerously filthy these waters really are.

The AP tested the water and found that Guanabara Bay, Copacabana beach, and Rodrigo de Freitas Lake — all of which will host watersports events next summer — aren't safe for swimming or boating, and contain concentrations of viruses that are "roughly equivalent to raw sewage."

"As a result, Olympic athletes are almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses that in some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach," the AP reports.

The pollution is the result of untreated human waste pouring into the waterways. It has been a public health issue in Rio for decades, but with the world's biggest sporting event 12 months away, Rio's waters are literally being put under the microscope.

Looking at recent photos from these polluted venues, it's alarming that they'll be hosting the Olympics in 12 months.

Guanabara Bay will host the sailing events.

It looks idyllic from above.

But the waterway was one of the locations where the AP found dangerous levels of virus concentration.

Source: AP

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The NFL Players Association is using the NFL's own decisions against the league to fight Tom Brady's four-game suspension.

In taking the NFL to court to have Brady's suspension overturned, the NFLPA is basically arguing that the NFL's past rulings in cases don't make any sense.

George Atallah, a representative of the NFLPA, went on "The Dan Patrick Show" and argued as much, ripping what he described as inconsistency in the NFL's punishments:

"In some cases, I'm not really sure what they're doing," Atallah said. "Because the disciplinary issues and decisions they have been involved with over the past five years or so, have been inconsistent, completely arbitrary, and frankly, made up. And so, it's not just Tom's case — we go back to [the New Orleans Saints' bounty case], we go back to Ray Rice, we go back to Adrian Peterson, we go to Greg Hardy, and right on down the line.

"So, this is not just an example of, 'Yeah, they want to make an example of Tom Brady.' This is a situation, frankly, they get themselves into pretty frequently."

According to ProFootball Talk's Mike Florio, in the 54-page lawsuit filed by the NFLPA, the union even refers back to a 2009 case in which a member of the New York Jets' equipment team was suspended for attempting to use unapproved equipment before the game. There was no investigation, and the kicker did not get in trouble.

Florio writes:

As the NFLPA points out, the NFL did not investigate or discipline the Jets kicker for 'general awareness' or specific involvement, even though the Jets kicker (like Brady in this case) was the player most likely to benefit from the behavior and, in turn, the player most likely to be aware of the conduct.

...

So why suspend Brady under a policy that applies to teams and not players? At paragraph 108 of the lawsuit, the NFLPA claims that 'a fine would not have quenched other NFL owners' thirst for a more draconian penalty.'

Nobody is quite sure how this case is will play out or for how long. Both sides have convincing arguments against the other, and it seems no matter what the court ruling is, one side will feel it got the short end of the stick.

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The Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday made another blockbuster deal, acquiring pitcher David Price from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for Daniel Norris and other top pitching prospects.

Price is the second major acquisition the Jays have made this week. On Monday night they landed shortstop Troy Tulowitzki from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for José Reyes.

CBS Sports' Jon Heyman first reported the deal.

Price, considered by many to be the top pitcher on the market before the trade deadline closes on Friday, will become a free agent after this season. Reports have already linked him to big-market teams including the Yankees, the Cubs, and the Dodgers. By trading away Norris, a promising young pitcher, and other top prospects probably in exchange for just half a season with Price, the Jays are making it clear that they are going all in on a playoff push this season.

Price also fills a major hole in Toronto's starting rotation. Though the Jays' offense leads the league in runs above average — even before Toronto traded for Tulowitzki — the team's pitching has been mediocre. Right now, Toronto ranks 23rd in the majors in starting ERA. Price, on the other hand, has a 2.53 ERA this season, per baseball-reference.com.

At the moment, the Jays are 51-51 — sitting six games behind the Yankees for first place in the American League East and two games behind the Minnesota Twins for the second American League Wild Card spot.

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With much of the cost of hosting an Olympics going into infrastructure that is expected to be used beyond the games, calculating the total cost of hosting an Olympics can be a matter of perspective. But if we look at just the sports-related cost, we can see that the cost of hosting an Olympics is skyrocketing.

A study by Bent Flyvbjerg and Allison Stewart for the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford looked at the sports-related cost and cost overrun for most Olympic games since 1968. From 1968 through 2010, the games had an average sports-related cost of $3.6 billion (inflation-adjusted). Then, all of a sudden, things took off. The last two Olympiads had an average cost of $16.2 billion.

To make matters worse, not a single Olympic games hit their budget with an average cost overrun of 167%. Only Beijing 2008 (4%) and Vancouver 2010 (17%) had cost overruns of less than 29%. In other words, it is easy to see why the Boston 2024 bid died when the mayor wouldn't immediately sign the host city contract that would have made the city responsible for cost overruns. 

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New York Giants owner John Mara provided the quote of the NFL preseason when talking about the Jason Pierre-Paul situation at training camp on Thursday.

Pierre-Paul was in a fireworks accident on July 4. He reportedly lost a finger and fractured a thumb in the accident, but the Giants don't actually know that for sure.

Since he's technically a free agent because he hasn't signed the team's $14.8 million franchise tender, Pierre-Paul is under no obligation to talk to the Giants or let them check out his hand. The team sent two employees to Florida to see JPP in the hospital, and he refused to see them. He also hasn't responded to a text from coach Tom Coughlin, the coach claims.

According to ESPN he's working out by himself and won't sign the franchise tender until he's confident he can pass a team physical. It makes total sense, but it has created a weird situation where the Giants — his presumed employer — are completely in the dark on the state of his hand.

At training camp, Mara put it bluntly, "I don't know how many fingers he has."

He also said this:

Coughlin told SI's Jenny Vrentas, "I want to help. I want to be there for him. But he's decided that he doesn’t want our help."

Mara has said the same thing, telling the New York Post that Pierre-Paul is getting some bad advice and he should rejoin the team immediately.

Despite these appeals from the team, Pierre-Paul seems to be doing the right thing here. If he came back before he was fully healthy the team could place him on the non-football injury list and refuse to pay him for games missed. But if he came back and passed a physical, the team couldn't put him on the NFI list. ESPN's Dan Graziano says Pierre-Paul is going to come back "sooner than expected."

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Rio de Janeiro is not in great shape one year before the 2016 Summer Olympics.

A recent AP study found the bodies of water that will hold events are riddled with sewage and viruses that could make athletes "violently ill."

While not nearly as threatening, Rio may also have a problem fitting its tourists into the city for the games. According to Donna Bowater of BBC, while Rio meets the IOC requirement of a minimum of 40,000 hotel rooms, the Brazilian tourist board is expecting 380,000 tourists to come for the games.

With a potential shortage of rooms, favela residents have been renting out their homes for tourists, and they're increasingly filling up. Dario Schaeffer, who runs a guesthouse overlooking Copacabana beach, told Bowater:

"We're almost full [for the Olympics], and we don't know if we're going to want more people than those who have already closed the deal."

Most of the favelas tourists are staying in are the "pacified" favelas — neighborhoods the Brazilian government started running through to drive out gangs and crime in 2008. Though as Bowater reported in April, many of the favelas that haven't been pacified or are undergoing pacification are still in bad shape — the UK's Foreign Office reportedly warns that all favelas remain "unpredictably dangerous" — residents aren't as worried. Schaeffer told Bowater that his neighborhood used to be crime-ridden but is now quiet and peaceful.

For less-established rental homes, things like running water and electricity could become problems for tourists.

Other guesthouses and bed-and-breakfasts have also popped up in non-favela regions to support tourist needs. Marta Miller, who has been renting her top floor as a guesthouse since 1999, told Bowater she's concerned about this new crop of accommodations:

"People who are doing it just to make money... it is worrying, because they should be able to speak at least two languages, they should understand other cultures. ... And if you are not well prepared you can cause problems for them."

Ultimately, these new housing options don't seem as big of a problem as the waterways or still-under-construction venues, but at the very least, it could create some problems for tourists who are straying outside of the city to stay in favelas.

Read Bowater's full story here. >

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The debacle that is Deflategate has long stopped being about underinflated footballs – if it ever really was.

Because if this had anything to do with PSI readings or whether a Patriots employee sat on a Gillette Stadium toilet and put a needle in the valves of a bagful of footballs, the Patriots or Tom Brady would have been given a modest fine and the subject would be forgotten.

Playing with the inflation rate of game balls has always rated low on the league’s list of infractions.

Just look at the wrist slap the Minnesota Vikings received for warming balls on a frosty day if you want to see how minimal an infraction ball deflation really is.

The battle between NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Brady is an image war. It started when a talented and respected columnist was given a tip that the NFL was investigating the possibility that New England slightly deflated footballs in an AFC Championship Game they won by 38 points.

The columnist did what talented and respected columnists do when given tips of such magnitude. He reported it. And ever since the $10bn league and the $150m quarterback haven’t been able to control the story, turning it into a runaway truck that looks likely to land them all in court.

Goodell has always policed his league with a moist index finger pointed in the breeze of public opinion. This stood in contrast to his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, who seemed to care little about perception when he made decisions.

But the approach served Goodell well in his first year as commissioner when the owners and advertisers considered players’ off-field misbehavior to be the most serious issue facing the league. The severe punishments he gave Tank Johnson and Pacman Jones were arbitrary but they were lauded in the media.

When you react the most to the loudest cases, you paint yourself into a corner. Each oversized public spectacle requires an oversized public response. Last year, Goodell didn’t properly consider the justified anger festering around Ray Rice’s vicious assault on his fiancée when he first gave the running back a two-game suspension for the incident.

And so he came back with a sloppy indefinite suspension that lasted until an arbitrator overturned it in late November. After being soft then hard on Rice he couldn’t afford to be seen as being gentle with Brady. Not with the story growing bigger by the day.

Brady’s early defiance when the deflation story broke put Goodell in an awkward spot. The quarterback had to understand Goodell gives the biggest punishments to the hottest controversies – especially when the commissioner believes people have not been honest with him.

Surely Brady saw how Goodell overreacted in suspending Saints coach Sean Payton for a year over a locker room bounty program. He had to know something similar could happen to him if he was at all evasive in the face of an inferno.

Brady made the biggest mistake a player can make when trapped in a public relations case in Goodell’s league – he destroyed evidence, giving the commissioner a justification for a four-game suspension as well as taking a first- and fourth-round draft pick from the Patriots.

While the NFL’s deal with the players union might not require Brady to give Goodell his cell phone, he had to know his failure to do so would be used against him.

Even if he routinely destroys old cell phones as his advisors have said, he must have realized that discarding the phone with January’s texts would raise eyebrows.

Perhaps Brady can win a courtroom battle over the validity of Goodell’s request to hand over his phone. But legal semantics matter little in a public relations fight.

Roger Clemens beat the US Department of Justice in court but that victory has not convinced Baseball Hall of Fame voters that he played the game steroid-free.

So here we are six weeks from the start of another NFL season with the league’s most important player suspended for a quarter of his team’s games, going to court with the commissioner over an alleged crime that is the football equivalent of jaywalking. By now Goodell and Brady should have found a way out of this situation. It’s a fight that does neither any good and yet they seem incapable of extracting themselves from a pointless standoff.

Goodell has swayed with the wind of public opinion so many times he had no choice but to go hard after a player the league does not wish to punish.

Brady worried so much about perception he couldn’t duck a story that ballooned as the Super Bowl drew close. Now they stand on the brink of jumping hand-in-hand off a cliff over something so trivial as gripping a ball better on a rainy night.

Goodell should have been giving Brady a fine or a scolding in an office meeting this summer. Quarterbacks have been asking team employees to alter the balls to their liking for decades now. But a well-placed tip reported at exactly the right time put the public relations commissioner and image-conscious quarterback on a path to doom.

How the man in charge of the world’s most-lucrative sports league and one of world’s biggest sports superstars couldn’t find a way out of this mess is the biggest story of all.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

This article was written by Les Carpenter from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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Beijing was selected Friday to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming the first city awarded both the winter and summer games.

Beijing defeated Almaty, Kazakhstan, in a vote of the International Olympic Committee. The voting numbers were not immediately released.

The Chinese capital, which hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, came in to the vote as the strong favorite, despite its lack of natural snow and winter conditions.

Beijing was seen by the IOC as a safe, reliable choice that also offered vast commercial opportunities in a new winter sports market of more than 300 million people in northern China.

Almaty had hoped to bring the games to Central Asia for the first time, but it was a lesser-known quantity and viewed as a riskier choice by IOC members. Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov made a last-minute impassioned plea for the IOC to be "brave" and give the games to his country, but it wasn't enough.

The contest was a study in contrasts between the world's most populous nation and a former Soviet republic seeking to establish itself on the world stage. China's size and political and economic might was a big advantage against its northwestern neighbor, which became independent in 1991.

Beijing and Almaty had both been considered longshots when the 2022 bid race opened two years ago. But they were the only two candidates left after four European cities — including Oslo and Stockholm — pulled out for political or financial reasons.

Beijing plans to use several venues from the 2008 Olympics, including the "Bird's Nest" stadium and "Water Cube" arena. But the snow and sliding events would be at venues in Yangqing and Zhangjiakou, 60 and 140 kilometers (40 and 90 miles) outside Beijing. A planned high-speed rail line to Zhangjiakou is supposed to cut travel time to 50 minutes.

China's mountain venues also rely heavily on man-made snow, which was considered one of the bid's main weaknesses and one that was the target of Almaty's "Keeping it Real" slogan. Almaty is surrounded by towering mountains and plenty of natural snow, but Beijing bid leaders insisted they have sufficient water supplies and snow-making equipment for ideal skiing conditions.

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Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating out Almaty Kazakhstan, the only other bid, in a tight vote.

The bidding for the 2022 games was a profound disappointment for the IOC. Every potential host city with a democratically elected government dropped out nearly a year before the final vote, mostly over economic concerns and lack of public support. When Oslo — which graded far higher than Beijing and Almaty in the IOC's preliminary bid assessment — dropped out last October, it left the IOC with two less-than-ideal options.

In a 137-page evaluation of the two bids, the IOC outlined several problems with a Beijing Winter Olympics. The most obvious: There's no snow.

Mountain events will be split between two different clusters. Alpine skiing and sliding will take play in Yanqing, about 55 miles from Beijing. Freestyle skiing, snowboarding, and the Nordic disciplines will take place in Zhangjiakou, which is about 100 miles away.

The average snow depth in Yanqing is 5 centimeters, with a minimum depth of 1 centimeter. The IOC included two photos of what the Yanqing Mountain looks like for its bid evaluation. These photos were taken between January 20 and January 23, which is two weeks before the period during which the Beijing Olympics will take place in 2022.

There's no snow:

Here's the planned ski route:

The IOC sees this is a problem.

"The Zhangjiakou and Yanqing Zones have minimal annual snowfall and for the Games would rely completely on artificial snow," concluded the bid evaluation. "There would be no opportunity to haul snow from higher elevations for contingency maintenance to the racecourses so a contingency plan would rely on stockpiled man-made snow."

While using artificial snow shouldn't affect the competition (or, maybe it will), it's going to make for an odd viewing experience.

"Due to the lack of natural snow the ‘look’ of the venue may not be aesthetically pleasing either side of the ski run," the IOC admitted.

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After drawn-out negotiations all off-season, Russell Wilson has agreed to a four-year, $87.6 million contract extension with the Seattle Seahawks, SI's Peter King reports.

The deal comes with a $31 million signing bonus (tied for the most in the NFL this season), $60 million guaranteed (the second-most in the NFL), and a $21.9 million average salary that ranks second in the NFL behind Aaron Rodgers. It's a monster contract, and it comes only hours before a self-imposed deadline would have cut off negotiations until next summer.

What makes Wilson's contract unique is the insane amount of guaranteed money. Wilson's deal is 68.4% guaranteed, which is far more than many of his peers, according to Over the Cap. Rodgers' deal, for instance, is only 49% guaranteed, and Cam Newton's monster new contract is only 39.5% guaranteed.

Wilson essentially passed up the rumored, massive $120-million deal for something smaller with a high amount of guaranteeed money.

Heading into the offseason, Wilson was believed to be aiming for a record-setting contract that seemed like a matter of "when," not "if."

However, things suddenly became quiet, and it was later reported that Wilson and the Seahawks were "tens of millions" of dollars apart. When Cam Newton signed a $103 million contract with $60 million guaranteed (with only half of that guaranteed for injury, importantly), it seemed that whenever Wilson got an offer, it would trump Newton's.

Instead, Wilson reportedly turned down a deal worth $21 million per year, but with far fewer guarantees and money upfront, making the deal less lucrative than some of his peers.

In the end, he got a bigger deal than Newton based on average salary, and more guaranteed money (depending on how much is guaranteed for injury).

Wilson confirmed the news on Twitter: 

The deal is good for both sides. Wilson gets paid for his borderline unprecedented early-career success, and the Seahawks locked him up instead of letting him dangle in free agency when they'd have to use the franchise tag on him.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see how the Seahawks will pay their other breakout stars asking for more money, given that they now have several players signed to big salaries. 

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Following reports that Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay — the venue for sailing and windsurfing events at the upcoming 2016 Summer Olympics — is teeming with sewage and viruses, the US Sailing Association said that it won't push the IOC to move sailing events to a different location.

"We don’t advocate a venue change," Josh Adams, the managing director of US Sailing, told Business Insider.

"We are well aware of the concerns of water pollution on Guanabara Bay," he said. "We have been for several years, and have been making preparations to protect the athletes."

With just over a year remaining until the Opening Ceremony, there is growing concern regarding the water quality of Guanabara Bay. International Olympic Committee officials said that clearing the pollution will be their biggest obstacle over the next year. The AP followed this announcement with a comprehensive report detailing the specifics of the pollution, saying that the water was teeming with sewage and viruses, and that athletes risked becoming "violently ill" while being 1.6 million times more likely to come in contact with a disease-causing virus than on a beach in Southern California.

Ivan Bulaja, a Croatian-born coach of Austria's 49er-class sailing team, told the AP that his athletes have been sick vomiting and with diarrhea because of Guanabara Bay's water conditions.

"This is by far the worst water quality we've ever seen in our sailing careers," Bulaja said.

Adams, however, explained that US Sailing has been working with the United States Olympic Committee to conduct its own tests on the water quality of Guanabara Bay, and they've found the results satisfactory.

"We wanted to take actions into our own hands and test the water and make sure the playing field was safe for our athletes and would be a fair environment for competition," he explained. "And based on the study we did and the feedback we got from our medical experts, we’re satisfied that the athletes are safe and the competition will be fair."

"There is a rich history of sailing in Brazil, particularly in Rio de Janeiro," Adams added. "We've been training in Rio for several years without incident. We’ve gained valuable experience there and we’ll continue to monitor the situation and continue to encourage all efforts to clean up the bay. As we speak, US sailing team athletes are just getting of the water after a day of racing at Guanabara Bay."

Farrah Hall, an American windsurfer who finished 20th in the 2012 London Olympics and is currently in Rio preparing for next summer's competition, said the pollution levels will all depend on the weather.

"If there isn’t any rain, the physical levels of floating garbage in the areas where we race aren’t as bad as depicted in the media," she told Business Insider. "The windsurfers mainly race in the area underneath the famous Sugarloaf Mountain, which is close to the mouth of Guanabara Bay. However, further up the bay, there is less tidal flushing and there can be more buildup of trash."

Hall also explained that avoiding debris is part of any competition.

"In Miami, a very urban venue where the US Sailing Team spends a lot of time training and competing, there are obstacles in the water to avoid such as huge clumps of shedding sea grass and the occasional plastic bag or two-by-four boards. Obviously we would prefer to race where there isn’t any debris, but at any event we don’t have much control over what’s floating in the water."

Brazilian Olympic officials said that they will work hard to clean Guanabara Bay over the course of the year. Hall isn't particularly optimistic.

"I haven’t really seen any clean-up efforts happening in my area," she said. "I’ve read that the government has boats out to collect trash. It is a huge job, so I’m not sure there will be much of an impact before the Games."

At any rate, athletes are staying focused on training and competition and not letting the issue distract them. Caroline Lind, a two-time American gold medalist in women's heavyweight rowing, said that the pollution is out of her control.

"As an elite athlete, you just have to block these things out," she said. "The full focus is being mentally and physically prepared.

Bryan Volpenhein, head coach of the US men's rowing team, echoed Lind's words.

"There’s not much we can do about it, other than take precautions and mentally prepare for anything that might come up. You just go out and race and hopefully you row clean enough that you’re not getting splashed."

SEE ALSO: Photos of the Rio Olympic venues that are full of human waste and teeming with viruses

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New York Jets star defensive end Sheldon Richardson was charged with resisting arrest near St. Louis, Missouri, Thursday night.

According to a police report from the O'Fallon, Missouri Police Department, Richardson was allegedly involved in a high-speed road race in which he was clocked going 143 miles per hour. 

When the police attempted to pull him over, Richardson allegedly fled, turning off the highway, running a red light, and turning off his lights before pulling into a driveway, where the cops followed him. 

According to the report, police found a fully loaded semi-automatic handgun and a "strong odor of burned marijuana." He also had two other adult males and a 12-year-old male in the car with him, the report said.

According to the St. Charles County prosecuting attorney's office, resisting arrest is punishable upon conviction by up to one year in jail and/or up to a $1,000 fine. Richardson's handgun was legal and there was no marijuana found in the car.

For the Jets and Richardson, this is bad news. This incident comes just 12 days after Richardson received a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy.

According to ESPN's Rich Cimini, Richardson had just made his first public comments to reporters since the suspension, saying: "I apologized to my teammates and this organization. I told them they don't have to worry about my name being in the news again."

The early word coming out of the NFL world is Richardson may not be playing football for a long time:

According to Cimini, the Jets were "blindsided" about the news and didn't know about the incident until the media reports came out. 

Richardson was one of the key members of the Jets' talented defense. He was the 2013 Defensive Rookie of the Year and a Pro Bowl selection last season.

There's been no update from the league on the incident. According to NFL columnist Mike Freeman, having the gun and a child in the car will hurt Richardson's case. While no charges were filed in relation to the gun or having a child in the car, those details could be used by the NFL when deciding on discipline.

We will update when new details emerge.

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The New York Mets suffered a brutal loss on Thursday thanks to a controversial rain delay.

Up 7-5 in the top of the ninth, with two outs and one strike, the Mets were two strikes away from a series win over the Padres, keeping them right in the middle of the hunt for the NL Wild Card spot.

However, as rain came down, the umpires called a rain delay that lasted 44 minutes.

Mets fans were obviously displeased:

When the game resumed, the Padres Derek Norris, who went down 0-2 in the count, singled, followed by a single from Matt Kemp to put two runners on base. Justin Upton then hit a three-run homer to put the Padres up 8-7.

Afterward, there was another rain delay lasting two hours and 52 minutes. The delay was so long, people started to wonder whether the game would be canceled, in which case the Mets would have won as the score would have reverted back to the last full inning, which in this case would have been the eighth inning.

Instead, play resumed, and the Mets went down in three batters and lost the game, falling to 52-50, four-and-a-half games back of the Wild Card.

Between this and the non-trade that brought a player to tears, it was a rough 24 hours for the Mets. Making matters worse, the Mets had been leading 7-1 before a grand slam from Norris in the seventh inning that brought the score to 7-5, setting up Upton's home run.

Though their season is far from over, this was a big win that slipped through their fingers. The Mets now enter a crucial series with division-rival Washington Nationals, who lead the NL East by three games.  

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