London Olympics 2012

Border agency guards including immigration and passport workers at Heathrow airport who had threatened to strike for 24 hours over job cuts on the eve of the Olympic Games called off their action on Wednesday, their union said.

Harrison won the women’s 78-kilogram class and the first gold medal for the U.S. in judo. Within 48 hours, she was inundated with interview requests from news organizations and late-night talk shows. They wanted her to recount her compelling life story.

Many governments are giving their Olympic medal winners bonuses and in the U.S., a winning athlete faces a possible tax bill.

Sometimes the sports marketing universe aligns in perfect ways. For Skechers and Meb Keflezighi, August 2011 was one of those times.

Five years of planning. 150 rehearsals this year alone. Fifty staffers dedicated to nothing but preparations for the Olympic Games. These measures aren’t cheap, but Heathrow Airport is hoping the long-term benefits of being the official host airport for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games outweigh the near-term costs.

A web site run by in-laws of Prince William faced allegations that it violated the Olympic copyright protection act for selling hundreds of Olympic themed items under a section of the site called “Celebrate the Games.”

Contrary to what the name might suggest, there's actually not that much gold in a gold medal. While the medal's design is different for every Olympics, it must adhere to guidelines set by the Olympic Charter.

“I love swimming,” said Coughlin recently, “but I don’t love it enough to hold a part-time job while trying to train five or six hours a day.”

The top of the Olympics medals table was, as predicted, a struggle between the world’s biggest economy, the United States, and its second-biggest China for first place. Yet when population and GDP are factored in to the medals tally, the biggest winner is in fact tiny Caribbean island Grenada.

Seventeen year old Missy Franklin, who won Olympic Gold in the 100m backstroke and also captured a Bronze in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, is now swimming in the fast lane toward endorsement riches.

Michael Phelps is as close to a living Olympic legend as you can get. He's won 16 Olympic medals, including eight golds in the 2008 Beijing Games.  But what about his brand and earning power if he loses at the 2012 Games?

When it comes to protecting the Olympic sponsors, the ferocity of enforcement this time around is unprecedented and controversial.