Category Archives: Olympic Preview Issue Swimmer Ryan Lochte In his portrait series of gold-medal hopefuls for TIME's 2012 Olympics special issue, Martin Schoeller shows three U.S. team members whose passion for sport isn't contained by training center walls The Olympics head to Britain for an unprecedented third time. Global economic gloom can't dim the competition for gold Afghanistan's first female boxer may take a pounding in the ring. Big deal. She's been in much tougher scraps back home China's athletes demolish the competition in weight lifting and diving. It's not a passion; it's a job The wrestlers of Chechnya and Dagestan compete as Russians. But in the hills - and even the gym - Russia is still the enemy Homare Sawa lifted Japan with a World Cup win - and put women's football on the map The U.S. hurdler stumbled horribly in Beijing, losing gold. What we can learn from her nightmare