Olympic Briefs -- Snowboard Champ Dies in Accident, Royal Help for Tokyo Bid, Usain Bolt London Medal Haul

Karine Ruby at the Salt Lake City Olympics. (Getty Images) Olympic Snowboarding Champion Karine Ruby: 1978-2009

Olympic snowboarding champion Karine Ruby of France was killed in a mountain climbing accident on Mont Blanc in France on Friday. She was 31.

Ruby was traveling across a glacier with a group when she and others fell into a valley. She and another climber were killed.

Ruby won a gold medal in snowboarding in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano and was a silver medalist at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. She also won six world championships and posted 65 World Cup victories during her career.

Ruby, who retired from competitive snowboarding after the 2006 Turin Olympics, was training to become a mountain guide at the time of her death.

Tokyo Seeks Royal Help for 2016 Bid

\

Tokyo will ask Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako to help promote its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, according to Tokyo governor and bid chairman Shintaro Ishihara. Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako may lend a hand in promoting Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. (Getty Images)

Ishihara told AFP that Tokyo will ask Prince Naruhito to present the city’s bid to around 100 members of the IOC in Copenhagen, Denmark on Oct. 1, right before the beginning of the IOC congress that will decide the 2016 host.

“It will be absolutely necessary to solicit kind help from the imperial family for the benefit of the Japanese people and for the history of Japan,” Ishihara said. “We plan to make a formal request through the government in the days ahead.”

IAAF Officials May Change Schedule to Help Bolt Quest

IAAF officials are considering changing the athletics schedule at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London to help Usain Bolt in his quest to win gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400-meter dashes, according to a report in The Courier-Mail.

Bolt would become the first athlete to achieve the trifecta at a single Olympics.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said Bolt’s performance at the world championships in Berlin in August would determine how likely the federation would consider making changes to the Olympic athletics schedule. The IAAF has expressed willingness to change its athletics schedule at the 2012 London Games to accommodate Usain Bolt’s bid for gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400-meter events.(Getty Images)

“If Usain continues to do amazing things, is super motivated, we’d be insane not to consider it,” Davies said. “If he wins the 100 meters and 200 meters in Berlin this year, I think (changing the Olympic schedule) would be strongly considered and (London 2012 chairman) Seb Coe is an athletics guy and he would be over the moon to have that.”

Briefs…

…NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol was named sports executive of the year by SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily at a ceremony in New York City on Thursday. Peter Ueberroth, the organizer of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

…The World Anti-Doping Agency and FINA have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to restore U.S. swimmer Jessica Hardy’s two-year doping ban, which would prohibit her from competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Hardy was barred from participating in the Beijing Olympic after she tested positive for anabolic agent clenbuterol last July. The AAA reduced Hardy’s ban after finding that her test was caused by a contaminated nutritional supplement.

…A total of 450 volunteers will be used during the 121st IOC session and the XIII Olympic Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark Oct. 1-9, The volunteers, mostly from Denmark, will assist the event’s organizing committee inside and outside the Bella Centre, the main venue, and in the hotels where the IOC delegates will be staying. They will serve as drivers, security assistants, guides and press staff.

…Olympic gold medal hurdler Edwin Moses received an honorary doctor of science from the University of Massachusetts at Boston on Friday. The 53-year old Moses won the gold in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Written by Greg Oshust, Isia Reaves and Utsav Yadav