Sportplexity

Sport is deeply embedded into culture and society, yet at the same time can operate in bubbles – both literally and figuratively these days. Sports can be forces for good, positively impacting lives both individually and collectively; but they can also be tools for conflict and despair. At its core, sport is complex, riddled with tensions and irresolvable dilemmas – a sportsplex.

In this talk I will explore some of these tensions, particularly ethical tensions that confront sport in the 21st Century, using examples including Caster Semenya’s fight to participate as a female athlete, Lance Armstrong and the ethics of doping, and the future of sport embodied in the Paralympics. To conclude, I will argue that this complexity, these tensions, makes sport one of humanity’s greatest ‘inventions’ and explains why we do invest so much into it.