The political act among athletes

Audio 19:30

Naomi Osaka during the 2018 US Open tournament (photo illustration) Reuters / Jerry Lai

By: Adrien Delgrange

21 min

When athletes put their notoriety for the benefit of a cause.

Publicity

The raised fists of the Black Power of Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos during the 1968 Olympics, the knees of American footballer Colin Kaepernick in the summer of 2016 to show his solidarity with the "Black Lives Matter" movement or even more recently, the tennis player of Naomi Osaka, winner of the Us Open, who uses the mask as a political weapon by displaying the name of a victim on her mask to denounce the racism of the American police.

Of these strong symbolic gestures, when do we remember?

Do they have a real impact on the conscience?

Americans have long used sports fields as political ground, what about elsewhere in the world?

Our guests

professor of American Civilization at the University of Versailles St Quentin

editorial director of the Sport and Citizenship think tank.

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• United States

• Sports

• Racism

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