That’s slightly better than the most recent estimate of $250 million in losses. Advertising sales have improved a bit since NBC parent General Electric Co. made that projection in late January.

The Olympics did bring about $800 million in extra revenue to GE. But NBC had a lot of production and other expenses, including $820 million just to acquire the rights to carry the Vancouver Games on television and online. That expense was cited as the main culprit for the red ink.

Still, GE executives said the high-profile event had ratings that were 14 percent better than the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, for which NBC paid $613 million.

And GE Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin said the Olympics provided a good platform to advertise its new 10 p.m. lineup and Jay Leno returning to “The Tonight Show” at 11:35 p.m.

Cable TV giant Comcast Corp. is seeking government approval to acquire a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal from GE. The Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department are expected to approve the deal with conditions that are not yet known.

The University of East London announced Wednesday that about 600 U.S. athletes and 500 support staff will use its campuses, gyms and sports facilities, including a new $26.8 million indoor sports center that is expected to open next year.

While the athletes will stay in the Olympic Village, the staff will use the student dorms and set up their own sports science, medicine and media centers.

“This is a great opportunity for our athletes and staff to use these excellent facilities at UEL and to enter this partnership for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive officer Scott Blackmun said in a statement.

American track and field athletes also plan to use facilities in the central city of Birmingham before the Olympics.

The new sports center includes a gymnasium and fitness center, two basketball and volleyball courts, two indoor soccer pitches, a sports cafe and covered seating for 400 fans.

“The facilities at UEL will ensure that our athletes are ready to compete,” said Mike English, the USOC’s chief of sport performance.

The UEL doesn’t have is a 400-meter running track or 50-meter pool.

“There are not a lot of them in east London,” said Paul Ford, the university’s director of Olympics and Paralympics operations. “But the local organizing committee have identified venues which are a 30-minute drive from the Olympic Park. The U.S. will have to share those facilities with other teams.”

Regarding USOC payment for use of facilities, Ford said the partnership with the university was “not financial” apart from the cost of renting some of the facilities.

“It is about Team USA leaving a legacy with the university and the community, working beyond the games,” he said. “It’s not just about the three weeks of the games.”

Maybe it’s because in downhill, it’s just you and the mountain. In skicross it’s you, the mountain, a couple dozen twists and turns and three other racers determined to beat you to the finish line.

“You never know what’s going to happen in front of you and you need to be prepared for that and to adjust very quickly,” Rahlves said.

The sport was added to the Olympic program following the overwhelming popularity of snowboardcross, which made a splash at the 2006 Turin Games. The men race on Sunday, with the women hitting Cypress Mountain on Tuesday.

Yet there is a decided difference between the two, from the age of the average competitors to the uniform.

Snowboardcross is populated by mostly 20ish riders who dash down the hill in baggy snowpants and are known to drop in a funky board grab or two to spice things up.

In skicross, not so much.

Many of the top racers are like the 36-year-old Rahlves, former Alpiners who moved to skicross in part because they were on the back end of their careers or were simply lured in by the new opportunities skicross provides.

Including Rahlves and teammate Casey Puckett, six of the world’s top 12 ranked men in skicross are former downhill skiers in their 30s.

The women’s side is a little younger, but not much. Ashleigh McIvor, a 26-year-old Canadian, 20-year-old teammate Kelsey Serwa and 33-year-old Ophelie David of France are considered the top contenders.

While Alpine success can certainly help in skicross, it doesn’t guarantee a thing because skicross adds banked turns, blind jumps and racing near a competitor.

“There’s not that many guys that are good at this,” said Stanley Hayer of Canada, who is 36. “It takes a totally different skill set. You can be a great giant slalom skier and totally (stink) at skicross.”

Rahlves won 12 World Cup races between 2000 and 2006, but that success has never translated to the Olympics. He went 0-for-7 between Nagano, Salt Lake City and Turin, failing to crack the top five in any event.

He hopes to change that Sunday, and the unpredictable nature of skicross means anyone in the field can walk away with gold if they mix some good fortune with a whole lot of daring.

“I’m a scrapper,” he said. “I like to fight for it. I always like more challenge, when it’s harder and it’s more risky.”

London organizers proposed last year that badminton and rhythmic gymnastics be moved to Wembley Arena in northwest London rather than be held at a planned temporary venue near the Olympic Park in east London.

Scrapping the temporary facility would save organizers tens of millions of dollars.

The badminton and gymnastics federations have expressed concern over the travel time between the athletes’ village and the Wembley venue.

In a presentation to the International Olympic Committee assembly Thursday, London organizing committee chairman Sebastian Coe said the executive boards of the two federations will discuss the move in February and March.

“We are very close to a final agreement,” said Denis Oswald, who leads the IOC’s coordination commission for the London Games. “It’s only a question of weeks.”

Oswald indicated the outcome was a virtual certainty.

“We express our gratitude to these two federations who have agreed to move some of their events,” he said. “This will lead to a saving of several millions. We thank them for their understanding in these challenging economic times.”

London organizers have offered to house the athletes in hotels within walking distance of Wembley and find ways of shortening the travel journey.

“We’ve pretty much agreed everything,” London chief executive Paul Deighton told The Associated Press.

The IOC also heard a final presentation from organizers of the Vancouver Olympics, a day before the opening ceremony, and a progress update on the next Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

“If it’s ever possible to say that you are ready, we are ready,” Vancouver organizing committee leader John Furlong told the assembly. “When the flame will arrive in Vancouver tonight, life as we know it is going to change.”

Dmitry Chernyshenko, the CEO of Sochi’s organizing committee, said construction was well under way for Russia’s first Winter Games, where virtually all the venues are being built from scratch.

Chernyshenko said Sochi had exceeded $1 billion in revenue from top-level domestic sponsors, a record for a Winter Olympics, and soon would begin signing second- and third-tier partners.

Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said the Russians were on track overall.

“Our confidence is total, but the project is immense,” Fell said. “It’s the biggest project we’ve ever seen for the Winter Olympic Games. There is still a lot to do.”

On London, Oswald said city officials were considering reducing red lights to avoid traffic congestion for Olympic vehicles in 2012. Because of the city’s narrow roads, London will not have reserved “Olympic lanes” like other host cities.

Oswald said he was told by London Mayor Boris Johnson that the number of lights could be cut from 5,000 to 4,000 for the games, and the city could put up temporary pedestrian bridges over roads to keep traffic running.

Deighton said no final decisions had been made yet, and that London already has a system for regulating traffic lights to speed the flow of vehicles.

Oswald said the IOC was not “totally enthusiastic” about London’s proposal to use a single torch for the Olympic torch relay rather than the tradition of using several torches.

Deighton told the AP later that London agreed to drop the proposal and would stick with multiple torches.

International Association of Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack asked Coe _ who is an IAAF vice president _ whether the main Olympic Stadium will definitely remain a track and field facility after the games.

The 80,000-capacity stadium is designed to be reduced after the Olympics to a 25,000-seat venue, mainly for track and field. However, officials also are looking at the possibility of having a local soccer club as a tenant and using the stadium in England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup.

Coe said there was no dispute over the stadium, and that a final decision will be up to a newly created legacy company.

“We have always made it very clear that this would be primarily a track and field facility,” Coe said. “But we also made it clear we would explore options to house other sports in there, as long as track and field was the primary purpose.”

Here is some information on the sport that made its Olympic debut in Chamonix, France, in 1924 but then disappeared again until Nagano, Japan, in 1998, where it was introduced for men and women.

_ Curling involves two teams sliding 19.1-kilogram (42-pound) granite stones toward a target of concentric circles on the ice. One game consists of 10 “ends” during which each member of two four-person teams slides two stones.

_ The closest stone to the center of the target earns a point. If a team has the two closest stones it earns two points, and so on. The team with the most points at the end of 10 ends wins.

_ After the stone is sent sliding down the ice, two players use brooms and sweeping motions to control it _ to make it go faster or slower, or to change its direction, or “curl.”

_ It’s serious. Although curlers like to have fun, counting the social aspect of the sport as a big part of the experience they love, curlers around the world have taken their fitness to a new level in preparation for these games. They have personal trainers, high-intensity training camps, sports psychologists and more. The teams that do not train hard off the ice are the ones that fall behind everybody else.

_ Behave yourself. This sport, dating to 15th-century Scotland, prides itself on a tradition of sportsmanship and good manners. The Chinese women didn’t talk to the media after Sunday’s practice in order to keep their focus, and it caused an uproar of sorts. On Monday, when they passed the media, they smiled and said “hi.”

_ The terminology is foreign to say the least. There’s broomstacking, the post-match ritual of heading to the lounge with the opponent for a friendly drink. (Traditionally, the winners buy the beers.) The “button” is the innermost circle within the “house” _ the area the stone must cross into to be in play.

And the “hog line” is a line that players can’t cross when releasing their rocks.

The list of nations who qualified and entered bobsled events at Vancouver, obtained on Wednesday by The Associated Press, failed to include Jamaica _ which had spent the last few weeks hoping that a slot opened in the field.

Those hopes were dashed, and on Wednesday, the Jamaicans acknowledged that all chance for 2010 was gone.

“We’ve been in battles for many, many years,” Chris Stokes, a founding member of the Jamaican bobsled team more than 20 years ago, told The AP in a phone interview. “This is one more. But it’s disappointing, no question about that. The guys worked really hard and did well. Not qualifying, it’s by no means a failure. It’s a step going forward.”

Officials from the Vancouver organizing committee are in the process of certifying those entries. There remains a chance more nations could be added, but for that to happen a sled that has entered must drop out.

The Jamaicans say they’re no longer waiting for that to happen.

“I am told there are no other options at this point,” team spokesman Stephen Samuels said.

They knew they were long shots to get into the Vancouver Games, but still, the notion of another team from the tiny island nation competing in these Olympics _ 22 years after the first Jamaican sled raced in the Calgary Games and sparked the idea for the movie “Cool Runnings” _ was enough to create a buzz.

Poorly funded and often racing with substandard equipment, the Jamaicans and driver Hannukkah Wallace managed to just sneak into the world top 50 rankings in four-man sliding, giving life to the chance of a Vancouver berth.

In the end, they needed to be a few spots higher.

“If we have to be the last small nation, then so be it,” Stokes said. “We’ll keep the fight.”

Wallace has said he wasn’t sure if he’ll stay with bobsledding, return to his roots in athletics, or possibly both. It’s not uncommon for bobsledders to take some time off, especially early in a new four-year Olympic cycle.

Stokes said he believes Wallace will try to return and lead the team again.

“This is Hannukkah’s third year driving,” Stokes said. “People in the sport would say you need five, seven, maybe even 10 years to get to a certain level. Given the timeframe of development that we had, we knew it would be difficult. And one of the challenges we have in Jamaica bobsleigh, while other nations have several drivers coming up, we can afford only one.”

The Jamaicans already say they’re not abandoning all plans for 2010 _ or 2014, for that matter.

As has been planned for months, the team will be at Whistler, if for no other reason than to experience what an Olympics are like, Stokes said.

“It’s very important for them to go and see,” Stokes said. “They’ll remember what the games are like and watch the start line of a four-man Olympic race and feel that adrenaline. I hope it acts as a motivation for them.”

And for the Sochi Games of 2014, Jamaica says it’s hopeful of adding more sleds, more drivers _ and intends to offer a coaching job to retired U.S. bobsled pilot Todd Hays, who saw his career end after a crash this season. Even before retiring, Hays lent the Jamaican federation equipment and expertise.

“There are many things we can, and we will, do to improve our chances,” Stokes said.