Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Vieweg, Klaus; Lettmaier, Saskia --- "Anti-Discrimination Law and Policy" [2011] ELECD 819; in Nafziger, A.R. James; Ross, F. Stephen (eds), "Handbook on International Sports Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Handbook on International Sports Law

Editor(s): Nafziger, A.R. James; Ross, F. Stephen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847206336

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Anti-Discrimination Law and Policy

Author(s): Vieweg, Klaus; Lettmaier, Saskia

Number of pages: 36

Extract:

10 Anti-discrimination law and policy*
Klaus Vieweg and Saskia Lettmaier



I. INTRODUCTION: SPORT, EQUALITY, DIFFERENCE, AND
THE ELUSIVE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Sport is a common denominator of most cultures. It is a universally popular pastime, a
globe-spanning institution. Sports transcend national, racial, religious, gender, and class
lines. Sports are what people love, what unite them, and, perhaps, help define them. As
Nelson Mandela put it, `Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to
inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.'1 As Number 5 of the
Fundamental Principles of Olympism declares: `Any form of discrimination with regard
to country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is
incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement.'2 At the same time, divisions in
sport are widespread. We distinguish according to nationality, sex, weight, and age,
between the able-bodied and the disabled: national teams exclude foreigners; men and
women play and compete separately; there are weight classes in boxing and wrestling;
senior competitions protect older participants from younger adversaries; much energy has
been quietly and successfully invested in creating sporting activities expressly for people
with disabilities (such as the Paralympics, the Special Olympics, and wheelchair basket-
ball). In sports, as elsewhere in society, we seem to be both united and divided, and the
reasons for the divisions are not difficult to uncover: differentiation in sport is often
justified in order to ensure ...