Bridging Cultures One Ski at a Time

By Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff

Women from North and South Korea will compete together as a unified ice hockey team at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, the latest example of sport’s power to unite. It’s a triumph for sports diplomacy, an illustration of how people can learn and better understand each other despite divisions through people-to-people interactions. And while everyone will be watching the team, for many other elite athletes, sports bridges cultures on a daily basis. 

This is especially true for alpine ski racing. Before skiers can reach the Olympic Games, they must prove their mettle week by week as part of the yearly FIS World Cup. It’s a glamor-cloaked, adrenaline-addled circuit known fondly as the ‘White Circus,’ where the world’s best train and refine their craft while jetting from one ski resort to another. But beneath the glossy veneer, it’s a sport dedicated to passion and hard work that often forges tight family-like ties across nationalities, a unique world-class education on and off the piste.  

Togetherness begins on the terrain. In a world where climate change impacts snowfalls, skiers of all stripes search out conditions cold enough to sustain on-snow workouts. For some, like France’s Romane Miradoli, this is a silver lining. “We are constantly with other teams,” she said of how the French, Italian, and Canadian squads train together. This allows them to perfect different languages and learn more about each other. 

Traveling together, training together for more than 200 days a year under strenuous schedules also deepens bonds. Teammate Anne-Sophie Barthet noted that being away from home is difficult but brings skiers closer together. “I know my roommates better than my sister,” she said. It’s a bond intensified by the sport’s dangers, the risks involved, and pressures faced daily—all part of the job, but one that makes them stronger. “We are competitors but we all respect each other for what we are doing without judging the result,” she noted. “I don’t think many sports have this ‘valeur.’”

The race circuit also introduces skiers to different cultural attitudes towards competition. Barthet recalled a race where she didn’t do well, placing 20th. “I thought people were making fun of me by congratulating me,” she recalled of the gestures, which made her angry. “But then I realized they meant it [the congratulations], and it ended my day better because I was in a better mood thanks to them.” It’s a different approach towards sports from what Barthet is used to in France—as is the general American outlook towards sports. For Miradoli, who learned about the daily role sport plays in Americans’ lives from her U.S. friends, it’s worlds apart. “Their mentality is completely different from ours,” she said of American skiers, something she chalks up to their sense of self-confidence.

The camaraderie among international racers is a legend decades in the making. Herwig Demschar, Senior Vice President of International Business Development at POWDR Sports, devoted decades of his life to the discipline. “It’s very surprising for outsiders, but the whole thing isn’t treated by nations,” he said of alpine racing. As head coach of first the Austrian then the United States women’s ski teams, Demschar spent time with other teams and coaches. “Sometimes journalists would ask me ‘why would you train with the Swiss when you’re head coach of the Austrian team?’” he recollected. “I said, ‘because we like each other.’”

Over the years, the Austrian-American has fielded a variety of questions from Europeans and Americans, seeking to explain his two countries to others. Naturally, he’s asked about politics. But the differences in the Austrian ski industry versus that in the United States are also frequent topics of conversation. “In Austria, there’s a lot of people who own the ski resorts, former famers, landowners,” he explained, “and in the United States it’s mainly corporations.”

But by far, the topics he spends the most time explaining relate to Austrian and European versus American culture. “Living in a different culture, traveling a lot, the different languages, it’s very difficult for North Americans to be in Europe if they don’t speak German, French,” he said. Often, it’s the little things, like understanding the European lifestyle, ease of public transportation, or that many hotels are privately owned—a far cry from the many hotel chains that dominate the U.S. hospitality industry. 

Then there’s the food. For Demschar, as for many Europeans and Americans, gastronomy can be a landmine of questions and misunderstandings. “We put a lot of gravy on our food that North American’s don’t like,” he said as an illustration of explaining cultural eating habits. Conversely, he remained puzzled over certain U.S. food routines. “I remember the first time I came with the U.S. Ski Team to Zurich, Switzerland,” he recalled. “The first stop that we had to do was at a McDonald’s, and I said, ‘why would you eat stuff like this?’” 

Learning occurs well off-piste and off-site. For U.S. racer Resi Stiegler, her career is a master class like no other. “Traveling the world has been an education of its own,” she said. Stiegler started racing as a 16-year old, balancing skiing with high school and eventually forgoing college to pursue her dream. But she seized every opportunity to leave the track and interact with locals in each country she visited. “Going into the cities and meeting people on tour, I love to have a chat with [them],” she recalled of how she learned while on the road. 

These are just some of the many ways that training and competition enables elite skiers to interact with and better understand different cultures. This form of people-to-people diplomacy occurs daily across the sports world, not just alpine racing, and illustrates the heart of sport’s power to bring people together. As Demschar pointed out, “sport is one thing that makes it easier for people to understand other cultures and to live better with each other.” 

How the NBA went global

Basketball may be American-made, but it's increasingly the world's game

By Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff. 

Lindsay is a historian, consultant, and author of "The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France, 1958-2010." She serves on the Executive Committee of sports think tank Sport & Démocratie, where she co-leads sports diplomacy initiatives.

à lire ici / to read here 

Sport & Démocratie à la conférence “Golden Games : Sport and Diplomacy” 

de Singapour avec Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff

December’s “Golden Games: Sport and Diplomacy in East Asia and Beyond” conference brought to light the myriad relationships between sport and diplomacy – and the broad range of definitions of what constitutes “sports diplomacy.” The two-day program featured scholars from around the world and a special roundtable of practitioners to discuss the role and impact of sport and sports actors in East and Southeast Asia. 

One theme articulated was the role of sports actors in “sports diplomacy,” and who those actors are: governments, leagues, federations, cities, communities, individuals. The role of “athlete ambassadors” was discussed, alongside the reinsertion of their voices into our understanding of events.  

Other themes examined included: the role of mega events in “sports diplomacy,” the intersections of Paralympism and Olympism, the impacts of discrimination in multiple forms, and the “rise of East Asia” in the sports realm (the region will host numerous international tournaments and Olympiads in the upcoming years, and is the focus of many global leagues and teams as they build their bases and brands in Asia). 

Lastly, the importance of intercultural communication was highlighted, an acknowledgement that one region’s definition of “multiculturalism” and “racism” may differ from another’s understanding thanks to cultural nuances.   

Sport & politique

Le monde politique a toujours entretenu des rapports complexes avec le sport. La position du Barca sur le referendum catalan, les tensions entre Donald Trump et les joueurs de NFL et NBA sont autant de sujets qui ont poussé Tracey Holmes, journaliste vedette de la radio ABC News en Australie, a interroger Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff dans son émission

“The Ticket”.

L'article entier en cliquant ici

JO 2024 : une victoire internationale

Lisez l'analyse de Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff dans le Washington Post du 8 août 2017 sur la candidature de Paris aux Olympiades de 2024 (en anglais).

L'article entier en cliquant ici

“CAF, 60 ans de football africain”

Ce documentaire co-écrit par Sylvère-Henry Cissé, président de Sport & Démocratie, produit par Electron Libre, retrace l’histoire de la Confédération Africaine de Football depuis la création de l’institution et de sa compétition phare la Coupe d’Afrique des Nations. 

L’originalité de ce programme réside dans sa vision du football à partir de sa dimension politique, où s'imbriquent très étroitement la construction d’une conscience africaine aux moments des indépendances. Il met en lumière le rôle que ce sport a joué dans le renforcement des identités nationales et la prise de conscience d’une certaine idée du panafricanisme. 

L’interview de Sylvère-Henry Cissé, co-auteur de “CAF, 60 ans de football” ici

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La bande-annonce

Les peoples au service de l’entente

franco-anglaise

Lord Llewellyn, l’ambassadeur de Grande-Bretagne et le Club Sport
& Démocratie* ont accueilli samedi 17 juin 2017 à l'ambassade
de Grande-Bretagne à Paris le tournoi de tennis des “Personnalités engagées”. Le but de ce tournoi est de donner de la visibilité à CFPE-Enfants Disparus, association soutenue par l’Ambassade de Grande-Bretagne, et à l’association Maisha Africa de Sonia Rolland soutenue par Sport & Démocratie.

Marion Bartoli, Carine Galli, Emilie Loit, Carine Galli, Arnaud Lemaire, Sarah Pitkowski, Patrice Boisfer, Guy Birenbaum, Armand de Rendinger, Laurent Mauduit et bien d’autres, ont disputé des rencontres de tennis sur le terrain de tennis en gazon de l'ambassade, l’un des rares courts en herbe de Paris. 

Emilie Loit, capitaine des équipes de France jeune FFT, consultante télévision, Hakim Zermouni, docteur en diplomatie, ambassade de
Grande-Bretagne Paris et Sylvère-Henry Cissé, journaliste et  président du club Sport & Démocratie, les organisateurs de cet événement ont conviés Grégoire Margotton, Roselyne Bachelot, Sonia Rolland, Stéphane Guery, Jean-Marie Coustal, Flora Coquerel et d’autres happy few à soutenir les joueurs de tennis pendant les matchs. 

Avec les soutiens de Carrefour Groupe, la Fondation Engie et Lacoste, le tournoi des “Personnalités engagées” s’inscrit également dans le cadre du programme franco-britannique “Les Voisins”  Lancé par Prince William
le 17 mars 2017 à la résidence de l’Ambassadeur de Grande-Bretagne à Paris. Le programme “Les Voisins” célèbre les liens qui unissent le Royaume-Uni et la France, à commencer par les liens humains.