Swimming: A group of former Spanish synchronised swimmers have accused their ex-coach of abusive training methods in an open letter published yesterday. Anna Tarres was not kept on after her contract expired on September 6, and the Spanish Swimming Federation unveiled a new coach, Esther Jauma, and a new technical director, Ana Montero, yesterday. In their letter, the swimmers list a variety of different ways in which Tarres humiliated and degraded them.

Basketball: Yi Jianlian has secured a one-year deal to return to his old club back home after the Chinese international failed to re-sign with Dallas Mavericks in the US. The move to Guangdong Tigers leaves no Chinese-born players in the NBA, potentially threatening the league’s efforts to build up its following in the huge Asian market.

Winter Games: Russia unveiled the phrase “Hot. Cool. Yours.” as the slogan for the 2014 Winter Olympics as the 500-day countdown began to the opening in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. “Russia in many ways is a country of contrasts and we wanted to emphasise that in the slogan,” said the organising committee president, Dmitry Chernyshenko, at a presentation in Moscow. In Russian, the slogan reads slightly differently: “Hot. Wintry. Yours.” The Games will be hosted from February 7 to 23, 2014.

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Beach Volley: Kerri Walsh Jennings (picture) has revealed that she was pregnant last month when she and fellow American Misty May-Treanor teamed up to win a women’s beach volleyball gold medal at the London Olympics. Walsh said she is 11 weeks pregnant with her third child, meaning she was more than a month pregnant when she and May-Treanor won their third Olympic title in a row.