2024-09-03 03:01:00
Games and sports are, since their origins, a powerful tool to achieve social harmony. Contemporary sport, organized and progressively regulated for almost two centuries, came first to complement the playful expectations of economic elites and then, very slowly, to the entire population. But so slowly that it has never reached the entire population. Sometimes used politically by various regimes, its benefits far exceed any objections that may be raised against them, due to their proximity or manipulation by those in power.
Paris showed the emergence of new modalities, in an effort by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reach out to youth, and also to regain visibility and markets, which certain disciplines in permanent decline in participation and diffusion no longer produce.
So for example it was incorporated breaking, which had its beginnings just over 50 years ago, among the then forgotten and rejected poor teenagers of Bronx in New York. Today, it is widespread in many countries and has significantly increased in terms of the social profile of its practitioners, who are no longer limited to children and adolescents. isolated from those modern ghettos, but young people of both sexes and from diverse social backgrounds. This has meant that it is no longer seen as a cultural by-product, disdained from above, but as a dynamic and joyful activity. Questioned by some specialists for not being a sport with very defined rules, perhaps its weakest point is the one that gives it its attractive to a broad spectrum of youth.
Two other sports will also make their debut at Los Angeles 2028: Lacrosse and Flag football. Lacrosse originated among indigenous peoples of North America, and later spread to some extent and was played in schools. well-off people from Canada and the United States. The sport has never enjoyed widespread global popularity, and its importance is expected to grow with the boost of its Olympic inclusion.
Flag Football was born in the early 1940s in the United States military bases, as a healthy alternative to violent American football. By eliminating physical contact by simply holding the flags hanging from the players’ waists, the number of injuries was much lower, and the soldiers’ fun was equally guaranteed. It was a terrible paradox to protect young people from injury, who were later sent to die at the battle front.
With these changes, the United States shows its economic and lobbying power, even within the IOC, making to impose these disciplines that, although they are nice, do not yet have sufficient development or popularity in the world, thereby displacing long-established sports or reducing the number of future participants in others. In short, nothing new in the management of power.
* Former National Director of Sports.