You're right that you can't copyright facts, and at any rate you can't copyright short phrases like names. But this is a trademark or right of publicity questi

You're right that you can't copyright facts, and at any rate you can't copyright short phrases like names. But this is a trademark or right of publicity question, not a copyright question. Copyright deals with rights in written works. Trademark is about rights to brand names and marks on products. Rights of publicity are about using famous people's names and likenesses without authorization. I don't know much about right of publicity, but as far as trademark goes at least, there is this exception known as "nominative use," which basically allows you to use a trademark to refer to a product, so long as it doesn't look like you are using the name to market your own products. This is what allows you to use a trademarked product name in a review, for example. My guess is that, in this case, the company could have pushed back a bit on the IOC's blanket warning. Nominative use (which, incidentally, is backed by the First Amendment) would at least protect the right to report newsworthy events about Olympians. But if the company's reports start to look more like product endorsements or marketing pitches, it would become a different question.