‘Sport is my religion’ isn’t just a cute bumper sticker. Athletes create rituals, endure suffering and face their own mortality. Under the right circumstances, sport can be a powerful – and secular – spiritual practice.
West Africans who play professional football in Poland rest at halftime. Warsaw, Summer 2016.
Paweł Banaś/GLOBALSPORT
Many talented African footballers follow the exodus to Europe’s football leagues. But many are stuck in the lower leagues, without the glory and wealth they dream of.
TV ratings for the NRL and AFL grand finals show its still a challenge to engage a national broadcast audience that covers non-traditional areas.
Bombardier (right), the reigning champion and ‘King of the Arenas’, prepares to defend his crown against the popular young challenger Modou Lô.
Mark Hann/ Global Sport
Wrestling is Senegal’s national sport. But the presence of an ethnic discourse within the sporting arena may well threaten the notion of the multi-ethnic nation state.
Australian Paralympic athlete reflects upon how her experience as a student-athlete influenced a pilot program for Para-athletes to combine the pursuit of Paralympic success and study
A new Russian hack has claimed to reveal the details of so-called therapeutic use exemptions. But could transparency in this area be a benchmark for the fight against drugs in sport?
The goal of identifying leadership attributes that translate into team success remains as elusive in sport as it does in other spheres of human endeavour.
Serena Williams has just surpassed Roger Federer’s record for matches won at Grand Slam tournaments.
Reuters/USA Today Sports
Many commentators believe that Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time – but that should be judged not just on Grand Slam wins.
Many para-athletes have different degrees of disability. So how to level the playing field?
Australian Paralympic Committee
Football isn’t what it used to be. In Australia, they don’t even know what football is actually called (it’s not soccer). But what’s even stranger is football has become very popular in countries that…
The achievements of the Paralympians, and societal shift towards more inclusivity and the celebration of diversity, has had a dramatic effect on the lives of people living with disability.
Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand stops running during the 5000m race to help Abbey D'Agostino of the USA after D'Agostino suffered a cramp.
Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Although the Olympics have come to an end, fans will continue to be gripped by the infinite micro-narratives that sports fixtures provide. But are these narratives comparable to literary creativity?