Kurtis Marschall speaks with the youthful exuberance and endearing language of a teenager. It's probably because he is one.

One hadn't wanted to be an Olympian, the other endured a "piggy-back" ride in her heat, but in any case two Australian women have reached the final of the 3000m steeplechase.

Ethiopian athlete Etenesh Diro was left distraught after missing the final of the 3000m steeplechase having run the last 800m of her heat with just one shoe.

Canberra sprinter Melissa Breen's Olympic Games campaign ended in less than 12 seconds, but the 25-year-old was beaming with pride after being eliminated from the 100 metre event.

There was confusion on the track at the Estadio Olimpico on Friday morning as the first athletics medals of these Games were being contested.

Luke Mathews and Jeff Riseley are at opposite ends of their 20s, but the Victorians' disappointment was the same on Friday morning.

John Steffensen, long considered an enfant terrible of Australian athletics, has joined the national sports federation as a director.

John Steffensen is calling it straight. Of course he is. Big things have changed since he was cast an enfant terrible of the last Australian Olympic team. But in sporting retirement the man who generated hot headlines aplenty during his 12-year professional sprint career has hardly become a wallflower.

Vladimir Putin condemned the expulsion of all but one member of Russia's athletics team from the Olympics as "pure discrimination" on Wednesday as the country continued to rail against being found guilty of state-sponsored doping.

Former Olympic sprinter Melinda Gainsford-Taylor says that the ban on Russian athletes ahead of the Rio Games has tarnished the reputation of the Olympics.

Usain Bolt delivered on his top billing by winning the 200 metres at the London Diamond League but the Jamaican was upstaged for once as American sprint hurdler Kendra Harrison broke one of the oldest world records in the book.

The Ben Johnson 1988 Olympic 100 metres final was dubbed "the dirtiest race in history", but there is a new contender for that dubious honour.

Russia's athletics team will definitely not compete in Rio after the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected a Russian appeal against their ban.

The appeal by the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 of its track and field athletes against the ban from the Rio Olympics has been rejected, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has announced.

Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow to his 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics yesterday when the International Olympic Committee ordered every Russian doping sample from the event to be retested while it "explores legal options" over whether to implement a total ban on the country

Russia's participation in next month's Rio de Janeiro Olympics is hanging in the balance ahead of the release in Toronto of a report into allegations of state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Tasmanian youngster Jake Birtwhistle beat all three of Australian Olympic men's team as he claimed a World Triathlon Series silver medal in dramatic circumstances in Hamburg, Germany.

South African confiorms heavy Rio favouri

Emily Brichacek has fallen heart-breakingly short of Rio selection after stress fractures forced her to withdraw from the world championships in Beijing last year.