Olympic Newsdesk -- 2012 Time Trial Course Announced; Unrest Moves Olympic Qualifier

Royal Start and Finish for Cycling

Hampton Court Palace will serve as the start and finish line for the 2012 Olympic time trial cycling event.

LOCOG made the announcement Wednesday.

Races will take place on Day 5 of the Games, Aug.1. Riders will start on the driveway to Hampton Court Palace and finish outside the Palace grounds on Hampton Court Road.

Male riders will make one lap of 44 kilometers, while the women will travel 29km.

Each race is contested over a single lap which is slightly different for men and women, reflecting the respective distances.The course goes through the London Borough of Richmond, the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, and Elmbridge Borough.

Sebastian Coe, chair of LOCOG, said: "Hampton Court Palace is a stunning venue that will showcase the area. Following Team GB’s medal success in Beijing, the Road Cycling events really will bring the magic of the Games to life for many thousands of spectators."

The time trial will be a non-ticketed event.

2012 Qualifier Moved from Yemen to UAE

Yemen's twice-delayed London 2012 football qualifier against Singapore will wait no more.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation are moving the two-leg tie to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates due to ongoing protests against Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The two matches are now scheduled for March 19 and 21 at Khalifa Stadium, meant to be a neutral site.

Ticket Fraud Crackdown Nets Five Arrests

A used furniture store is among the earliest targets of Operation Podium, a team of 36 detectives charged with the protection of the ticket market ahead of London 2012.

The Associate Press reports that Metropolitan Police raided the south London shop, seized soccer tickets and left with a suspect, one of five arrests made throughout England on Tuesday.

"We want the ticketing criminals to know who we are and what we do," Operation Podium leader Nick Downing told the news agency.

London’s 40-day window to apply for tickets opens March 15. Selling them beforehand is a criminal offense.

LOCOG chair Sebastian Coe joined Downing late last month for a media briefing to introduce Operation Podium as well as the measures Games organizers are taking to ensure the integrity of the ticketing system.

As of the Feb. 17 briefing, Downing’s team had run operations this year on nine separate occasions and made 32 arrests, mainly on U.K.citizens.

"We're looking at what enables crime and we remove those enablers," the 22-year Met veteran told the AP.

"If you have a shop that allows its payment service to be used by a fraudulent ticketing website, then we will look to target those for money laundering."

The five suspects arrested Tuesday have yet to be identified or, for that matter, charged.

Freestyle Test for Sochi Ski Venue

Sochi’s ski slopes are staying busy as the Russian resort prepares for the 2014 Winter Games.

Weeks after staging its first test event, an alpine Europa Cup, Rosa Khutor again hosted elite skiers, this time of the freestylevariety.

Top snowboarders also stopped by Sochi over the weekend for the Russian portion of the Freeride World Tour, a seven-stop skiing and snowboarding series now its fifth year.

"This is one of the best competition days I've ever had," top-finishing skier Samuel Anthamatten of Switzerland said in a statement.

"We woke up at dawn and headed up the mountain straight away, so that we could make the most of the finest snow of the day."

Two final stops in Austria and Switzerland over the next two weekends await Anthamatten and company as the 2011 Freeride World Tour comes to a close.

Written by Ed Hula III and Matthew Grayson.