Be it sports, politics, hacking or war, the recent history of Russia's relationship with the world can be summed up in one phrase: They get away with it.

Vladimir Putin's Russia has perfected the art of flouting the rules, whether the venue is the Olympic arena, international diplomacy or meddling in other countries' elections from the comfort of home. And it has suffered little consequence for its actions.

Suddenly, Bayern Munich has problems it didn't have last week.

After stretching its Bundesliga lead to nine points over the weekend with an almost complete squad at coach Julian Nagelsmann's disposal, the nine-time champion could have been forgiven for allowing itself a breather before the start of the business end of the season.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic is on the entry list for the BNP Paribas Open in California, where the Serb would face a vaccine mandate.

Djokovic, who was unvaccinated against COVID-19 as of last month, was detained and eventually deported from Australia for failing to meet that country's strict vaccination requirements. It prevented him from defending his Australian Open title last month.

Liverpool will look to trim the deficit to leader Manchester City back down to nine points with a home win over Leicester in the Premier League. And Mohamed Salah is back to help the Reds after returning from the African Cup of Nations, where he lost in the final to Senegal on penalties. Salah might start on the bench at Anfield as Jurgen Klopp looks to ease his star player back in, but Sadio Mane — the scorer of the clinching penalty in the African Cup final — won't be involved at all. Leicester is looking to bounce back from beating humbled by second-tier Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup on Sunday. In the other game, Arsenal can climb to fifth by winning away at Wolverhampton

SPAIN

Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian superstar who was expected to deliver her nation its third straight Olympic gold medal in women's figure skating, practiced as usual on Thursday, hours after reports surfaced that she had tested positive for a banned substance.

Valieva tested positive for the heart medication before the Beijing Games, the Russian newspaper RBC reported.

Out of the FA Cup, now out of the Premier League's top four.

Manchester United is going through a rough spell under Ralf Rangnick — and Cristiano Ronaldo currently isn't in good enough scoring form to get the team out of it.

They said he should play football. They said figure skating was for girls. They said winter sports made no sense in temperate Guadalajara.

But none of those naysayers deterred Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo, the rare Latin American athlete at the Winter Games, who has now become an even more rare Beijing Olympics success story – however relative – from that part of the globe.

The Russian ice hockey team has started its defense of the Olympic men's gold medal with a 1-0 win over Switzerland in Beijing.

It wasn't the convincing start to the tournament the Russians may have hoped for as they were outshot 33-30 by a Swiss team not expected to contend for a medal.

Barcelona chief executive Ferran Reverter has resigned after only seven months in the role for what the club described on Tuesday as "personal and family reasons."

Two American-born athletes competing for China. Two radically different reactions from Chinese social media to their performances at the Winter Olympics.

As freestyle skier Eileen Gu won her gold medal in the big air competition on Tuesday, praise for the San Franciscan quite literally overwhelmed the Chinese internet.