Juan Antonio Samaranch, who is running for president of the International Olympic Committee, would push for a decision on transgender athletes’ participation in sports before next year’s Milano-Cortina winter Olympics, if elected to the post.

Any decision would also offer clarity for organizers of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, with U.S. President Donald Trump last month having ordered the exclusion of transgender girls and women from female sports. He said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete at the LA 2028 Games.

Transgender athletes are currently allowed to compete both in the Olympic Games and the Paralympics, if cleared to compete by their respective federations.

Samaranch, one of seven candidates for the most powerful job in world sports, told Reuters in an interview that should he win the March 20 IOC vote, he would act quickly to avoid having the Olympic Games tarnished by a gender dispute, as was the case in last year’s Paris Olympics.

“We should try our best to have it (decision) in place before the Milano-Cortina Games. I think it’s almost mandatory to try. The timeline is very short, but the timeline is there,” Samaranch said.

Samaranch, an IOC vice president, said the Olympic body should avoid a repeat of the Paris Games gender dispute over the participation of two female boxers, who both won gold medals, that dominated the international headlines and highlighted the lack of a universal rule.

“We saw Paris, one of the most, if not the most successful Games in history, and they were tainted by that issue,” Samaranch said.

Back in 2021, it was the IOC that had ordered international federations to each come up with their own rules for transgender athletes’ participation. Samaranch said it was now up the IOC to take the lead.

“It was a good call (in 2021), but it has not been good enough. Paris demonstrated that the social alarm on this issue is still there, and there is a common understanding… for the IOC as the leader of the world of sports to be the leader also on this issue.”

Samaranch also said he was confident of Trump’s support for the LA 2028 Games, calling the U.S. President a longtime supporter of the Olympics.

“The United States have demonstrated… day after day that they are very, very keen on the Olympic Games,” Samaranch said.

“I think that the objectives of both the organizing committee, the federal administration, and the IOC and the Olympic family are very much aligned.

“The United States will never let go of such an opportunity to again demonstrate to the world what they are capable of doing,” Samaranch added.

The Spaniard is running for the IOC presidency along with World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe, multiple Olympic swimming champion Kirsty Coventry, who is Zimbabwe’s sports minister, and International cycling chief David Lappartient.

Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan, International Gymnastics Federation head Morinari Watanabe and Olympic newcomer and multimillionaire Johan Eliasch, who heads the International Ski Federation, complete the list of candidates.

The Norwegian Ski Federation has suspended two staff members, including the national team coach, after the governing body admitted that the country’s ski jumping team cheated by manipulating jumpsuits at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim.

The federation said its ski jumping committee requested the suspension of national team coach Magnus Brevig and equipment manager Adrian Livelten after two Norwegian athletes were disqualified Saturday.

Acting general secretary Ola Keul said the suspensions were immediate and would remain until further notice.

“The information that has emerged so far about the events … is so serious that it provides grounds for suspending their employment,” the federation said in a statement Monday.

Stine Korsen, the chair of the ski jumping committee, said Norway would welcome an investigation by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) into the cheating.

“We take this matter very seriously and recognize that equipment has been deliberately manipulated in violation of FIS regulations in order to gain an advantage in the competition,” Korsen said.

Bine Norcic will act as coach while Brevig is suspended, the federation said.

Dutch athlete Maureen Koster suffered a fall and was knocked unconscious during the women’s 3,000 meters at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, on Sunday.

Koster, who won silver in 2015 and had finished second in the qualifying race, was treated by medical staff next to the track. The 32-year-old was later transported to a hospital.

The race continued, with Ireland’s Sarah Healy winning the gold medal. Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant took silver.

“Maureen’s a really good friend of mine so I wanted to check whether she is OK. I heard her scream … but I couldn’t see anything. I just thought, that’s Maureen who has gone down,” Courtney-Bryant told British media. “It put everyone on edge, and everyone was pushing more. It was a bit of carnage. Everyone else was really anxious because of it.”

The Netherlands team later posted on X that Koster was conscious and responsive.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Barely two years ago, Kaysha Love was finishing somewhere around last place in what would best be described as minor bobsled races.

She’s now the world monobob champion.

Love’s meteoric rise to the top of her sport is now complete, after finishing off a victory in the women’s monobob — meaning just one person in the sled — world title race at Mount Van Hoevenberg on Sunday. It was the second gold for USA Bobsled and Skeleton so far at the world championships, after victory in the mixed team skeleton race on Saturday.

Love’s four-run time over two days was 3 minutes, 57.82 seconds. Laura Nolte of Germany, the 2023 and 2024 world monobob champion, was second in 3:58.26, and Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. was third in 3:58.31.

“So close,” Meyers Taylor said as she embraced Nolte at the finish.

Love becomes the seventh pilot to win a world championship for the United States, joining Stanley Benham, Lloyd Johnson, Arthur Tyler, Steven Holcomb, Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries.

The 27-year-old Love sprinted in college at UNLV and grew up with dreams of making the Olympics in gymnastics before turning her attention to track. She got to the Olympics three years ago as a bobsled push athlete — and now might have earned a spot as one of the faces of Team USA going into next winter’s Milan-Cortina Games.

Sunday’s gold is her second world championships medal, joining a bronze that she won pushing Humphries’ two-woman sled just two years ago at St. Moritz. That was around the time when Love began the switch from the back to the front of the sled and started the process of learning how to drive.

The early returns were awful. Fortunately, she ignored those results.

Love drove in six races during the 2022-23 season on the North American Cup tour, a mostly developmental circuit where hopefuls tend to learn if they can drive or not. She was last or next-to-last among the finishers of every race, finishing an average of 2.51 seconds behind the winning sled. That’s not close. That’s a lifetime in sliding.

A few months later, something just clicked. She was winning development races the following fall, got onto the World Cup circuit for the first time and — in something that rarely happens — won her debut monobob race.

That was only 15 months ago. She’s now the world champion, not to mention a serious Olympic contender for next winter regardless of whether the races are in the Italian Alps or back in Lake Placid.

Love was the leader after Saturday’s first two runs and had a third-run time Sunday afternoon of 59.49 seconds. That was a bit slower than the third-run times for both Nolte (59.41) and Meyers Taylor (59.46), but Love’s margin after Saturday was enough to ensure that she would hang onto the lead.

Her lead over Nolte was 0.17 seconds going into the final run. It was enough of a cushion.

ARE, Sweden — Mikaela Shiffrin set an all-time World Cup record Sunday with her 156th podium finish though she let victory slip away in a slalom.

Racing through steadily falling snow with a first-run lead, Shiffrin was only 25th-fastest in the second run to finish in third place, 0.19 seconds behind surprise winner Katharina Truppe.

Katharina Liensberger placed second, trailing 0.05 behind her Austria teammate, whose first career World Cup win was earned at age 29.

“Katharina Day!” Shiffrin said in the finish area as she hugged the two racers who beat her.

“I actually feel pretty good about it,” Shiffrin said of her fifth slalom race in her comeback from a serious crash in November. “I maybe wasn’t always perfect but I was pushing really hard.”

Shiffrin’s 156th top-3 result in her World Cup career broke a tie with Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark. Shiffrin also took the all-time wins record from Stenmark and now has 100 to his 86.

Truppe now has one from her 181st World Cup start, though she has three championship medals including the team event gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

“It’s just: ‘Wow.’ I’m a little bit speechless,” said Truppe, who had been sixth-fastest in the morning run, trailing Shiffrin by 0.91. “First victory, it’s crazy. I will enjoy it and soak up all this emotion.”

Both Truppe and Shiffrin are aged 29 and won slalom bronze medals at the junior world championships though their careers were on different trajectories. Shiffrin won her medal aged 15 in 2011 and already had two World Cup slalom titles and Olympic gold before Truppe got her junior worlds medal in 2015.

Shiffrin needed to win Sunday to earn 100 race points and stay in contention – though only just – for a ninth career season-long slalom title. She missed four slalom races while recovering from her physical and psychological injuries.

“I’m still trying to get the repetition back. I just have to keep practicing it,” she said.

With Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova skipping the entire season to recover from a knee injury, the door opened for a new World Cup title winner.

The World Cup season-ending last slalom is at Sun Valley, Idaho, on March 27 with four skiers ahead of Shiffrin and within 100 points of the lead to lift the crystal globe trophy.

Title-chasing contenders Zrinka Ljutic and Camille Rast, the world championships gold medalist last month, both were below their best form Sunday and placed 10th and 11th, respectively.

Ahead of going to the United States, the 21-year-old Ljutic leads Rast in the slalom standings by 41 points and will win the title with a top-three result. Liensberger, the 2021 champion, and Rast’s Swiss teammate Wendy Holdener also could win.

Shiffrin said she plans to train in Europe before the trip across seven time zones, to the Idaho resort that last staged World Cup races in 1977.

“There’s certainly some travel challenges. It’s a really long distance,” she said. “I guess one more race this season for me but I’m looking forward to it.”

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — The U.S. won the mixed skeleton world championship for the first time Saturday night, after not even medaling in the first four editions of the event.

The team of Austin Florian and Mystique Ro won at Mount Van Hoevenberg with a combined time of 1 minute, 54.53 seconds.

Britain won the silver with the team of world men’s champion Matt Weston and Tabitha Stoecker finishing in 1:54.63. China got the bronze, with Dan Zhao and Qinwei Lin finishing in 1:54.81.

It was the fourth gold medal overall for the U.S. at a skeleton world championship, joining the men’s victory by Jim Shea in 1999 and women’s wins by Noelle Pikus-Pace in 2007 and Katie Uhlaender in 2012.

The U.S. has also won Olympic gold in skeleton three times, with Jennison Heaton taking the inaugural men’s event in 1928, then Shea winning the men’s race and Tristan Gale the women’s title at Salt Lake City in 2002.

The mixed team skeleton event was added to the program at the world championships in 2020 and Germany had won the competition every time before this year. But the Germans were shut out on Saturday night, after winning four golds, one silver and one bronze in the first four mixed races at worlds.

China joined the U.S. as first-time medal winners. Britain medaled for the fourth time, taking the silver in the event for the third consecutive season.

It was the final major race of the international skeleton season. The bobsled and skeleton world championships in Lake Placid continue Sunday with the final runs of women’s monobob and two-man bobsledding, then resume there next weekend with two-woman and four-man competitions.

ARE, Sweden — Federica Brignone is still a relentless winner in giant slalom races and Mikaela Shiffrin is still searching for form after her serious crash in November.

Brignone was fastest in both runs of a World Cup giant slalom Saturday to score a dominating victory and take another big step toward a second career overall title.

Shiffrin failed to finish in the first run, going out when she skied wide after approaching a right-hand turn too fast.

Brignone raced last in the afternoon as the first-run leader and extended her margin to 1.36 seconds over Alice Robinson. Lara Colturi was third, trailing Brignone by 1.43.

Despite holding a huge lead, the Italian star pushed for more speed and almost crashed within sight of the finish when she was launched up with both skis off the snow.

“It was a bit slippery. Then I had that mistake and I said, ‘Oh no, this is over,'” she said.

Brignone has won every giant slalom race she has completed this season, including a world championships gold medal last month. She failed to finish in three World Cup races.

Robinson’s consistent results means she still leads Brignone in the giant slalom standings by 20 points with one race left on March 25 at Sun Valley, Idaho.

“It’s an amazing fight,” Brignone said of her rival from New Zealand. “She has been on the podium every race and she’s an amazing skier.”

Brignone is racing toward a second overall World Cup title at age 34.

With 100 points earned for Saturday’s win, she leads by 322 over Lara Gut-Behrami, the defending champion, who placed ninth.

Brignone’s 36th career World Cup race win also was her 21st since turning 30, a record in the women’s World Cup. Downhill great Lindsey Vonn has 15 wins since her 30th birthday and Gut-Behrami has 12.

Sofia Goggia has four wins in her 30s and still no podium result in giant slalom for seven years. Starting the second run in second place, Goggia was on track to set the fastest time when she came to a stop after taking too much speed through a turn.

Shiffrin has now started three giant slaloms since suffering a deep puncture wound in her stomach during a GS crash in Killington, Vermont more than three months ago. Her results have been a 25th place, failing to qualify for a second run and now a “did not finish.”

The United States star has returned to top form in slalom, which is raced Sunday. She got her record-extending 100th career World Cup win in a slalom two weeks ago.

Brignone and Gut-Behrami both skip racing in slalom.

Norway’s Johannes Hoesfolt Klaebo powered through the final bend to win the men’s 50-kilometer mass start at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, on Saturday, completing an unprecedented sweep of six golds in front of a delighted home crowd.

Sweden’s William Poromaa battled all the way but was passed coming into the final turn and had to settle for silver, while Klaebo’s compatriot Simen Hegstad Krueger took bronze.

“It’s been crazy,” Klaebo, 28, said at the finish line as he struggled to hold back tears of joy. “I feel like I’ve been working so hard to just be here and try to be in my best shape and managing that, and winning six out of six here, it’s just crazy. I don’t have any words.”

Klaebo is the first cross-country skier to win every gold at worlds since it grew from five events to six in 2001 for men and 2003 for women.

Fans began to queue up in the early morning as a crowd estimated by media at more than 100,000 filled the stands and lined the course, creating a carnival atmosphere for one of the classic races in a sport that is followed fanatically in Norway.

While the bright sunshine warmed the crowd, it made conditions difficult for racers, who had to deal with wet, heavy snow that was quickly carved up and demanded every ounce of their power on the punishing uphill stretches.

After a slow start, it took until the 35-kilometer mark before a five-man breakaway featuring Norwegians Klaebo, Krueger, Harald Oestberg Amundsen and Martin Lowestroem Nyenget plus Swede Poromaa took control of the race, leaving the field in their wake.

Nyenget looked strong and attempted to break with three kilometers to go but was reined in. Having suffered a fall in the skiathlon race that cost him a medal a week ago, Nyenget took another late tumble in the loose snow to ruin his chances.

The tremendous tactical battle evolved when Klaebo switched lanes to make a burst into the final climb, but Poromaa answered and made a surge of his own as the pair dropped Krueger.

Unfazed, Klaebo let the Swede briefly take the lead before blasting by his rival on the way into the final bend and thrusting through the final straight to claim his historic sixth gold medal as the stands exploded in jubilation.

“I feel like I got helped by the hundreds of thousands of people out there. It was crazy. I feel like I say this, every single race that this is, that this has been the best day so far, but today it’s … it’s just crazy,” Klaebo said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

KVITFJELL, Norway — In yet another Swiss duel in World Cup men’s downhills, Franjo von Allmen edged teammate Marco Odermatt to win Saturday and send their season-long title contest to the final race in the United States.

Von Allmen, the new world champion aged just 23, finished 0.28 seconds ahead of Odermatt, who needed an agile recovery midway down the 1994 Olympics slope to stay upright.

Stefan Rogentin completed a Swiss sweep of the podium in third, trailing 0.38 behind Von Allmen. The result was unofficial as low-ranked skiers raced.

Switzerland waited 29 years to finish 1-2-3 in a World Cup men’s downhill at Crans-Montana on Feb. 22. The next one came just 14 days later.

Both times Von Allmen won and Odermatt was runner-up. Odermatt smiled in the finish area Saturday and as a show of respect pointed toward his good friend sitting course-side in the leader’s box.

In both of Odermatt’s downhill wins this season — at Val Gardena, Italy in December and storied Swiss venue Wengen in January — Von Allmen was second.

Von Allmen earned 100 World Cup points and Odermatt got 80. That cut Odermatt’s lead in the downhill standings to 83 and he needs just a top-14 result on March 22 at Sun Valley, Idaho, to retain his downhill title.

Odermatt is cruising toward a fourth straight overall World Cup title with a 520-point lead over Henrik Kristoffersen, who races only in slalom and giant slalom. The 27-year-old Odermatt can confirm his title Sunday by winning a scheduled super-G.

Von Allmen’s breakout season now counts two wins in World Cup downhills, one in super-G and two worlds gold medals last month at Saalbach, Austria, in downhill and team combined.

He clocked the fastest speed Saturday at close to 130 kph (81 mph) — slicker than the squirrels caught on camera scampering across the snow to the forest behind the safety fences — on the 3.04-kilometer (1.9-mile) course used at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games

Italian star Dominik Paris had denied Switzerland victory in Friday’s downhill when Odermatt was second and Rogentin third. Paris placed sixth Saturday trailing 0.59 behind Von Allmen.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — For Kimberley Bos of the Netherlands, the collection of the biggest skeleton medals is complete. Bronze at the Beijing Olympics in 2022, silver at the world championships two years ago and now, finally, gold.

Bos is the new world champion of her sport, turning in the fastest times in Friday’s final two runs to win the title at Mount Van Hoevenberg, the fifth different woman to win the season’s biggest skeleton race in the past five years.

“This year I was like, ‘I really want it.’ But you have to have it come to you,” Bos said. “You can’t force sliding.”

It’s the first skeleton worlds gold medal for the Netherlands and extends a run where a different woman has stood atop the podium after the year’s biggest race. Tina Hermann of Germany won the world title in 2021, Hannah Neise of Germany won Olympic gold in 2022 (there are no world championships in Olympic years), Susanne Kreher of Germany won worlds in 2023, Canada’s Hallie Clarke was the world champ last year and now, Bos reigns supreme.

Bos’ four-run time was 3 minutes, 40.06 seconds, and her final margin of 0.67 seconds matched the biggest by a woman at the world championships in a decade. Lizzy Yarnold of Britain won by the same margin at St. Moritz for the world title in 2015.

“It’s really cool. I don’t think I quite know yet what that means, but it means a lot to me because I really wanted to win a world championship,” Bos said. “Honestly, being in the lead after the first day, I was like, ‘Well, I have a good shot. I might as well make use of it.'”

Mystique Ro of the U.S. finished second in 3:40.73, and Anna Fernstaedt of the Czech Republic, whose career seemed in jeopardy after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes three years ago, was third in 3:40.81.

“This is the cherry on top,” Fernstaedt said. “I’m very happy.”

Bos was second behind Austria’s Janine Flock in the overall World Cup standings this season despite having only one medal in eight races this season — that being a win at Sigulda, Latvia. Flock moved up in the final heat Friday night and finished fifth, one spot behind Brazil’s Nicole Rocha Silveira.