A major battle is on the cards in ice-hockey, with newly-crowned European champions Metallurg Magnitogorsk set to play NHL side New York Rangers.

Maria Sharapova has won the Australian Open, beating Serbia's Anna Ivanovic in a thrilling final in Melbourne. It's the twenty-year-old Russian star's third Grand Slam title. Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004 and the U.S. Open in 2006.

Mikhail Ostapov, who heads the Krasnodar Department of Public Education, says Britain will do its bit in preparation for the winter Olympic games of 2014.

Chelsea have finally confirmed that they are to sign Lokomotiv Moscow defender Branislav Ivanovic. After weeks of wrangling, the blues today got their man.

Five Russian female athletes entered the third round of the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Russians Dmitry Tursunov and Yevgeny Korolev have made a good start at an international tennis tournament in Sydney, Australia, with Tursunov dispatching Switzerland’s Stanislav Vavrinki in the first round and Korolev sending off Paul Mathieu of France.

One of the first complexes for the 2014 Winter Olympics has been opened in Sochi.. The new Krasnaya Polyana ski resort will be one of the major sites for competition.

A baby mammoth might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Russia or the Olympics. But nonetheless, it could become the mascot for Sochi's 2014 Winter Games, if a campaigning group in St. Petersburg gets its way.

President Vladimir Putin has sent a message of greetings to the IOC Appraisal Committee that met in Lausanne on Thursday, the Kremlin press service said.

The world champions — the members of the Russia women’s national handball team – have made their way into the quarter-finals of the World Women’s Handball Championship, which is currently in progress in France.