Politics and sports
[2] Additionally, numerous athletes have sought political office such as Imran Khan and George Weah, some of them unsuccessfully, on either the national level or the sub-national current.
The country made a similar protest for the 1969 Bandy World Championship because of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia that year, handing over the hosting of the 1969 event to Sweden.
[18][19] Decades later, Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali, took up political causes in his refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam War amid the Civil Rights Movement during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1969, the Marylebone Cricket Club refused to allow Basil D'Oliveira to play for England against South Africa for fear of upsetting the apartheid regime.
Furthermore, following a fifteen-year lull in test matches, cricket tours between India and Pakistan were revived in 2004 in the wake of diplomatic initiatives to bury half a century of mutual hostility.
[40] Similarly, the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix, which was held amid claims from Bernie Ecclestone that there was no trouble, faced weekly protests and violence leading up to the event.
Yemen's Houthi rebels carried out a missile attack on an Aramco oil depot (approximately 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the circuit), causing an explosion, during the first of two practice sessions.
I think it was bad taste to criticise the 'man of the hour' – Jesse Owens[55]In 1964, Indonesia and other socialist countries decided to boycott the 1964 Summer Olympics as a response for Indonesian suspension from the IOC.
Věra Čáslavská, in protest to the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia and the controversial decision by the judges on the Balance Beam and Floor, turned her head down and away from the Soviet flag whilst the anthem played during the medal ceremony.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics by numerous Western states and their allies in protest of the host country's actions.
Following the cancellation of wrestling at the Olympics in the 2010s, traditional political rivals Iran, Russia and the United States joined forces to annul the measure.
[59] Thirty-six years later, a three-day "Ping-Ping Diplomacy" event was held at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum which some of the members from the 1971 U.S. and Chinese teams were able to participate in.
[62] During the 2010 US Open tennis tournament, India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi reached the men's doubles finals, eliciting responses from political leaders in both countries.
Rashid Malik, Pakistan's Davis Cup coach, said "The success of their team so far has been a big encouragement for both countries, it will only have a peaceful and positive impact on their people."
The two were also involved in another campaign promoted by the Monaco-based Peace and Sport when they wore sweat shirts with slogans reading "Stop War, Start Tennis."
[65]: 139 The first major international event a Chinese team participated in since 1966 was the World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, which ultimately led to the ping-pong diplomacy with the United States.
[66] The event paved the way for President Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972 and has been seen as a key turning point in relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
[71] In September 2020, English Premier League axed US$650 million contract to broadcast games through Chinese streaming service PPTV over alleged failed payments.
[78][79] The country's hosting and winning of the 1995 Rugby World Cup was a powerful boost to post-apartheid South Africa's return to the international sporting scene.
[26] The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa also drew similar parallels and questions as to whether race could be overcome,[80] this was especially true following the death of Eugene Terreblanche.
[84][85] According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".
"[86] Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
This resulted in absurd situations at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics, when the selected flag bearers, Yakov Kutsenko and Aleksey Medvedev respectively, were not allowed to compete because the officials did not believe they would win a gold medal.
Texas Governor, Rick Perry sponsored 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Series Champion Bobby Labonte's car for an election campaign in 2010.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent, while a loss had the opposite effect.
Baseball players union boss Don Fehr contributed to the presidential primaries for George W. Bush, Al Gore, Bill Bradley and John McCain.
Although this event brought in 177 countries, the greatest number in its history, it was never seen as a true alternative to the Olympics and did not gain the international visibility that the North Korean government had hoped for.
The Festival culminated in two nights of professional wrestling, which featured bouts between Japanese and American wrestlers that were watched by guest of honor Muhammad Ali.
Former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu ran three successful campaigns (including a by-election resulting from his own resignation) to become a member of parliament in the Lok Sabha as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate.
Former Argentine driver Carlos Reutemann served as Governor of Santa Fe and senator representing Justicialist Party Some victories are considered retroactively to be belonging rather to ex-colonies rather than countries under which players fought under.
