Archives - Page 2
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Vol. 27 No. 293 (2022)
Soccer, party, passion and business
Once again, like every four years, a World Cup is celebrated and for the first time, in an Arab country. Beyond criticism and questioning, it is a month where events keep us on edge, emotions on the surface and expectations at their maximum intensity.
It would be naive to imagine that in Qatar ancient traditions are going to be changed in exchange for organizing a sporting event, and furthermore FIFA already organized World Cups in the context of authoritarian governments in the '30s and '70s of the last century and never expressed some self-criticism about it, nor will it. In this context, the associations of participating countries and FIFA obtain millionaire income, derived from the enormous popularity that soccer reached worldwide and from the sponsoring companies that benefit from the event to promote their products and services.
At a time when events of this magnitude exceed what is played on the courts, conflictive issues are put on pause, and there is also an evident interest of the political power to associate itself with sporting success, if this happens. Undoubtedly, the World Cup will bring enormous happiness to the members of the triumphant team and to an entire colorful and noisy nation that accompanies them, without distinction of gender, ethnicity or social status. Something that expresses, in a universal language, the metaphor of contemporary society.
Tulio Guterman, Director - October 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 292 (2022)
Bill Russell, athlete and social leader
A few days ago Bill Russell died. He is one of the most outstanding basketball players in history, but also one of the most relevant athletes in the fight against discrimination to Afro-Americans. Along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other social leaders he accompanied Muhammad Ali on the day he refused to be drafted into the army. In the toughest years of civil rights demands in the United States, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks drew a path for this oppressed community to follow. The sports world was not immune to these struggles, with figures such as Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fist in protest on the podium at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
Angela Davis - North American philosopher and activist - affirms that the history of blacks is in fact the history of the United States, but it is also the history of the world. In our times, unfortunately, racism is still active. In 2013 Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors promoted the Black Lives Matter slogan, in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer. In 2016 Colin Kaepernick, an American football star, sat and later knelt during the anthem as a protest gesture, generating an impact that moved global society.
It is hopeful to see athletes who commit themselves and decisively face injustice. They are figures that influence a large part of society and become true social leaders. Sport is not only entertainment, it is also a way to achieve a better, fairer and more supportive world. Something that coaches should take note of when thinking about training processes.
Tulio Guterman, Director - September 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 291 (2022)
Everything changes
These days, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) returned the gold medals to Jim Thorpe, winner of the pentathlon and decathlon events at the Olympic Games of Stockholm in 1912. Thorpe, who died in 1953, was stripped of his titles as he was considered a cheater, for violating the strict rules of amateurism in those days, since he had earned some money playing baseball in a minor league team. For years the communities of native American people to which the athlete, considered in those years as the best in the world, belonged, fought to vindicate him in the face of tremendous injustice. The event reveals one of the many examples of the enormous transformations that have taken place in the last century.
Undoubtedly, we will witness enormous innovations with the popularization of technology, applied sciences, professionalization, the fight for equal rights, and other social and cultural changes. At the same time discussions, debates, complaints, hopes, disputes between conservatives and progressives, are all the ingredients that always make sport something striking and convening.
These days the Chess Olympiad is taking place in Chennai, in the south of India, with the participation of 350 teams from 186 countries and it involves two categories of competition: Open (regardless of gender) and Women. The event offers a format that all sports federations should reproduce, considering those who today have no chance of accessing the major prizes awarded by sport and may choose to do so, and those who want to continue competing in a protected category, could also keep competing there. This is a fairer and more equitable alternative, surpassing the ancestral model of segregated sport, which should not wait 110 years to be represented.
Tulio Guterman, Director - August 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 290 (2022)
The last bastion of the patriarchy
The sports fact should be conceived as a confluence between a multiplicity of factors, the biological one being one more. The dichotomous classification of genders that serves as a guide to justify the segregation between men and women shows enormous limitations, even in the medical field. The emergence of transgender bodies makes visible the fragility of the very foundation on which modern sport was built: the staging of the superiority of men (all men) over women.
Reality shows that the norms that apply to men are not the same as to women, which determines the material and symbolic prizes that are awarded in each case. A woman who stands out is always under suspicion, a man who rises above the rest is remarkably recognized, and in some cases, becomes wealthy. If segregation between the sexes in sport is eliminated, all people will compete affirming their uniqueness, without being stigmatized or differentiated, with the motivation of being able to reach the highest rewards.
Sport is one of the last areas of culture where the patriarchal system still survives, supported even by those cisgender women who criticize it so much. The survival of this phenomenon in a practice of enormous media coverage could affirm a normative model that justifies the expulsion and exclusion of people, in sport and also in other areas. Leaving this alternative open means a setback in basic rights, which is already happening in several countries.
Tulio Guterman, Director - July 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 289 (2022)
It's soccer, not a war
In a few months a World Cup will take place. A moment where massively, without distinction of gender, the deepest tribalism emerges, the one that affirms the feelings of cultural and ethnic identity, represented in the colors of the shirt, the anthem, the features of the players, the style of play and in everything we imagine represents and testifies to what is ours, to us, what distinguishes us from others. And it causes the deepest emotions of satisfaction and pride, or anger and humiliation.
On the media side, we see how the language of war is naturalized, with metaphors typical of epic discourse. Words like crush, eliminate, massacre, fight, hit, destroy, hero, sacrifice, battle, defeat, strategist, shot, dominate, submit, enemies, execution, and others run through the usual lexicon of sports journalists who live, during the event, their dream days.
If the soccer narration is crystallized by representing a war, perhaps the same thing will be reproduced in daily life. In a time plagued by violence, with an unusual number of senseless massacres, of displaced migrants in search of hope, it would be beneficial to broaden the emotional field, and above all empathy and solidarity, to value the multiplicity of cultures, the ethical aspects, playful and aesthetic, affirming that beyond their own tribe there are others with whom, in one way or another, they can share, because they are also close.
Tulio Guterman, Director - June 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 288 (2022)
25 years of EFDeportes.com
A few weeks ago we celebrated 25 years on the Internet. During these two and a half decades we have shared the process of growth and expansion of several subjects: education, sports and comprehensive health. Staying up-to-date, self-improvement and professional qualification became necessary and along this path we proposed topics that became new challenges for applied professionals, scholars and researchers.
At a time when communities are facing enormous changes and professions are strongly impacted, the technological wave has been and still is overwhelming and requires constant learning and adaptation. But there are essential issues that are always there and are inexcusable: respect for uniqueness and differences, social and educational inclusion, equal rights, access to culture for everyone, without exception.
Although technological tools are essential, this digital magazine does not originate with the sole intervention of artifacts. It is a task of a human group: there are those who edit, correct, review, supervise, draw, translate, design, and necessarily those who produce the texts and choose this medium for their broadcasting. This gives as a result, readers, commentators, broadcasters, critics, each adding value and providing feedback on the work done. In the search for the highest quality and improvement day by day, I share this unique moment with all those who contributed and continue to contribute their time, their knowledge and their talent. For what we did and for what will come, cooperating, exchanging... we keep going.
Tulio Guterman, Director - May 2022 -
Vol. 27 No. 287 (2022)
Goodbye Roberto Di Giano
He was the co-pilot who guided us through the most challenging route, in this daily journey that takes us through the twists and turns of knowledge of the world and its protagonists. He produced multimedia knowledge, author of five personal books -one posthumous that will be presented in a few weeks- and many others in collaboration, he wrote dozens of articles and took part in several educational videos on the topics of his specialty. Sociologist graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, scholar of society, its leaders and their times, singer of tangos and ballads, Roberto Di Giano will no longer be present.
Many of us will feel his loss, we will miss sharing and discussing ideas about the paradoxes and absurdities that occur when soccer, society and politics meet. There will be an empty chair in the meetings with authors from different latitudes, in those neighborhood gatherings full of chats watered down with coffees and beers, and in the after-meal comments in the barbecues.
A few months before the start of a World Cup, nothing is more contemporary than a phrase from its enormous production, which invites us to think about an event that has an impact on the global stage: Politicians are highly interested in their countries’ selections qualifications, even if they are far from moving fans based on authenticity and beauty. That intense view of reality, his commitment, his knowledge, his experience, his dignity... we will miss you.
Tulio Guterman, Director - April 2022 -
Vol. 26 No. 286 (2022)
Inclusive Sport and Science
Every time a trans athlete enters a sports competition and loses, the world seems to celebrate inclusion and acceptance of diversity. But if they win, which happened recently with Lia Thomas, they generate claims from their cisgender opponents. The athletes consider it unfair that someone with physical superiority competes in a category that was historically protected.
Specialized journalists resort to different arguments to justify segregation in professional sports. One of them uses statistics: men -on average- are taller, with greater muscular development, heavier, with a larger heart and greater muscular capacity. If this were so decisive, professional sport should prevent access to men without these characteristics. And on the contrary, it should allow women with these exceptional qualities to participate in the competitions that award the greatest material and symbolic prizes, today exclusively limited to men. But this is not what happens.
What's more, three of the best soccer players in history (Pelé, Maradona and Messi) have heights closer to the average for women. Stephen Curry, leader of the Warriors, one of the best players in recent NBA seasons, is only 1.88 meters tall and manages to stand out against opponents of much greater physical size. Paradoxically, in this unfair context, Zhang Ziyu (2.26 meters tall female Chinese basketball player) will see his professional success limited and will have to settle for earning at most 500 times less than that of his male peers, like many other athletes.
From another point of view, Richard Dawkins, a biologist born in Nairobi, Kenya, argued that complex and statistically improbable things are by nature more difficult to explain than simple and statistically probable things. In this sense, sports sciences must be less biased and focus their knowledge on these new social contexts, in a world that demands greater attention to singularities, promoting equal rights and not segregation.
Tulio Guterman, Director - March 2022 -
Vol. 26 No. 285 (2022)
Multicolored tennis
Tennis was regulated in the second half of the 19th century, basically copied from the jeu de pomme, created in France. The game was of aristocratic origin and those who practiced it wore white clothing, a symbol of prestige and nobility. In Great Britain, a privileged class that held power adopted tennis and other sports practices as a sign of status and distinction.
In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, the workers of factories, mills, miners, machinists and others forged the wealth of the country and were protagonists of the expansion of the limits of a global empire. In those times, the white color clearly distinguished rich and poor, it symbolized a class in power that did not perform certain jobs and it discriminated against these people whom it considered unworthy, also denying them access to certain places.
Maintaining this tradition that requires wearing that single color in clothing at the Wimbledon tournament means symbolically perpetuating improper privileges of these times. The protagonists -players, spectators, assistants, journalists and sponsors- should turn their backs on an event, which as a ritual, replicates a strict code that celebrates social exclusion year after year.
Tulio Guterman, Director - February 2022Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 284 (2022)
For you, Elvira
Miguel Sánchez and the 30 thousand disappeared, are present! Listens again between dreams. There are a few days left until the end of the year and it is usual for her to be exhausted. She thinks it's strange that her brother's name has changed from familiar to popular. It's the fight against forgetting, she tells herself. Remember that in a few days it will be 44 years since that fateful day, when a gang took him from his house.
Miguel was a poet, bank worker and long-distance runner, who disappeared during the last military dictatorship in Argentina. She remembers when she gave that trophy to the winner of the Corsa Di Miguel in Rome in 2000, organized by initiative of Valerio Piccioni. And then the images burst forth: La Carrera de Miguel in Buenos Aires, in Bariloche, in San Miguel de Tucumán, right there in the neighborhood, in Villa España, Berazategui. It was also done in Morón, Resistencia (Chaco), Bella Vista (Tucumán), Havana, Barcelona, Ibiza, María Teresa (in the south of Santa Fe province).
Always the crowded start of the races, with the participation of people of all ages; and those gestures, those looks, one by one, unique upon arrival. She imagines the next race and pictures an ovation that makes her smile: Elvira Sánchez ... is present!
Tulio Guterman, Director - January 2022Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 283 (2021)
Soccer paradoxes
We ask them to give everything, that they win with strength; that they are exquisite, that they win through skill, with talent. We enjoy winning however it comes, even if all eleven hang off the crossbar; we prefer they win by many goals, with brilliance. We affirm that the best defense is a good attack; teams are built from back to front. We like that they play quickly, as a team; that their personal ability makes the difference. In addition, that they let it all hang out, but do not risk but rather, respect the strategic plan; that they are animated, that they are daring, undisciplined and go off the miserable script imposed by the coach.
We demand that they be honest, it is not sporting to win by cheating; to act as if they have received the foul in the area, just in case... we have to win at all costs. We are convinced that we must put in the kids, who are hungry for glory; you have to put the most veteran players who are more experienced in difficult games. Better to get the kids out, so as not to burn them out; we must replace the veterans, who no longer run and are always getting injured when they make an effort.
Undoubtedly you have to go out playing with ability; you have to crush the ball with your boot tip, so as not to risk anything. It is convenient to put players with mettle, with personality; you have to give opportunity to players with mischief and skill. Those who were transferred to Europe have to play since they are used to a better competitive level; you have to put those who play locally as they are the ones who really feel the weight of the shirt and do the hard work.
This absence of all logic puts us in eternal disagreement with others and even with ourselves. Fueled and expanded by the fervor of the media, the enormous, rich and complex culture that accompanies soccer is reduced to just passion.
Tulio Guterman, Director - December 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 282 (2021)
Courage, not shame
A few days ago, several sports newspapers stated in their headlines that the two MMA matches between a man and a woman carried out in Poland were a shame. Ula Siekacz and Wiktoria Domalska were defeated, but they will undoubtedly have another chance. They and other athletes are part of a generation that knows that if they want to obtain the greatest rewards they must face as equals (and defeat) the elite until today dominated by men. They try to emulate the achievement of Zhang Shan, who at age 14 beat his seven male opponents in the Barcelona '92 shooting final to reach the gold medal.
They know of the danger to which they expose themselves, but surely they are inspired by Edurne Pasabán (the first woman to reach the summit of the 14 mountains of more than 8 thousand meters in 2010) and by Valentina Tereshkova, the only cosmonaut who performed a mission on a solo ship up to date. This accomplishment was more than 50 years ago, and in addition Valentina contributed to a foreboding thought: On Earth, men and women are taking the same risks. Why shouldn't we do the same in space?
Athletes and fans perceive that the gender gap is decreasing, to the point that segregation in sports will become an anachrony in the coming decades. For this, sports women understand that they must prepare thoroughly to be up to the task and face and overcome rivals to get to the top.
Above all, they have to stand up to the most fierce, harsh and insistent adversary, which has more than three thousand years of practice: prejudice and discrimination. Daring to do so defines these combative women, for their bravery and for their dignity; and this is called courage, not shame.
Tulio Guterman, Director - November 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 281 (2021)
Sport and environmental health
There is an almost undisputed truth that affirms that physical activity and sport are necessary, almost essential to achieve and maintain good health. But this is not the case in all situations. There are many situations in which the imperative need to triumph in high performance levels threatens health to the point that the body is strained with high levels of risk for the integrity of athletes. At the same time, an excess of physical exercise can be very harmful.
The benefits of these practices are undeniable when they are carried out on a voluntary basis, with educational, recreational or therapeutic criteria with proper guidance and professional advice. But today it is claimed that what we conceive as health and disease is not merely medical or biological but is determined by social and therefore political processes.
In this sense, to achieve a healthy condition, multiple factors must be taken into account. Both the physical and social environment that surrounds us are decisive in our well-being. Fulfilling human rights without discrimination, assuring sanitary conditions, access to drinking water, toxic-free food, availability of free time, having activities and work relationships and emotional ties with other people or groups, allow a more comprehensive and complex point of view to always keep in mind.
Tulio Guterman, Director - October 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 280 (2021)
Dilemma and Hopes
The outbreak of the pandemic caused by the circulation of COVID-19 meant a bomb for each of the inhabitants of the global village. The leaders were presented with an impossible dilemma to solve: the mandatory lockdown as a resource to prevent the virus from spreading or leave the decision to individual free will. With the first option, you choose to safeguard the greatest number of lives; the second, perhaps mitigating the economic and social damage caused by a prolonged pandemic, but the risk of an uncontrollable spread undoubtedly increases mortality.
In this dystopian setting worthy of a science fiction film, we witness with hope the creation and distribution of vaccines in record time, the expansion of health care systems and the tireless work of health workers, the persevering activity of teachers who, in training at unusual speeds, have adapted effective tools and methodologies for their professional practice, to all those who responsibly accompany in solidarity and comply with prevention regulations.
On the other hand, unfortunately, irrational and hateful speeches, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and class discrimination have been expressed insistently.
We are still going through the crisis and we must be extremely careful. We are gradually returning to meet friends, family, colleagues, teachers and students, hoping that living with the mask will cease to be the accessory of fashionable clothing, trusting that we are living the end of the plague.
Tulio Guterman, Director - September 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 279 (2021)
All Games are political
In one of the most relevant moments of Tokyo 2021, the North American athlete Raven Saunders, came down from the podium with her silver medal and raised her arms above her head forming an "X" with her wrists, as she herself commented, representing the intersection where all oppressed people meet: the LGTBI+ collective, people with mental illness and Afro-American minorities.
Faced with this peaceful expression in favor of Human Rights, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is considering withdrawing the medal from Saunders, just as it sanctioned Tommie Smith and John Carlos for raising their fists in Mexico '68. They are the members of the same organization as during the Berlin Olympics in 1936, they were distracted by the Nazi salute - a symbol of discrimination and oppression - by leaders, athletes and spectators. They are the same ones that ensure hegemony to the most powerful countries by allowing them to incorporate athletes from peripheral countries, instead of collaborating so that these athletes develop and represent their countries of origin. This supremacy is confirmed at the time of granting the venues that only take into account a tiny percentage of cities, to the point that by 2028, London, Paris and Los Angeles are going to organize it three times, leaving without any chance to locations with reasonable resources to carry out the event. At the same time, they vindicate the laws of the most conservative countries, affirming gender binarism, and applying distinctive biopolitical criteria on the bodies of athletes.
Rather than preventing the interference of politics in the stadiums, the IOC tries to maintain its own interests, which, far from being the product of any expression of representative democracy, are associated with the corporate business of brands, sponsoring companies and the media that make it possible the media reproduction of this controversial show.
Tulio Guterman, Director - August 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 278 (2021)
Cheatrans and excluded
Many of the sports organizations, following the most outstanding, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), consider that there are only two categories of human beings, man-woman who compete in the male or female category. For its part, the UN report on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity recognizes that there are at least five types of gender identities: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex. The gender in a person can be different from the one with which they were born.
Within days of the start of the XXXII modern Olympic Games, the IOC denies the right of trans people to compete with their genuine body capital. It states that sexual ambiguity must be corrected to perpetuate the binary system on the sports scenary. A few nanomoles of the hormone testosterone in the blood determine access or exclusion and therefore an athlete who wants to compete within the rules of fair play, must undergo a purge of their hormonal content if they do not want to be tagged as cheater.
These ideas bypass laws that recognize diversity, which have been enacted in recent years in many countries. And thus, sport, supposed defender of health and inclusion, with its nineteenth-century practices and values, including gender binarism, is closing the right of a part of the collective LGBTI+ to develop, express themselves and freely choose according to their identity of genre. It is an indicator that the sport of the future will have to think about new forms of exhibition that more fairly reflect the plurality of human corporality. Perhaps the most reasonable is to abolish segregated competitions.
Tulio Guterman, Director - July 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 277 (2021)
Emilio Gutiérrez: tribute to an MVP
We met playing basketball, in the kids category, back in the early '70s. In those years we did not play in the same team. From there we found ourselves at different crossroads of life's roads. We were united by an interest in basketball and to try a social understanding of sport.
Emilio Gutiérrez was a fellow traveler, an honest and dedicated teacher who did everything possible to be where he believed he would be most valuable to others and what made him happy. Along this path, he worked as a teacher trainer in Physical Education, in clubs as a coach and gained invaluable experience incorporating the sport in prison. He was passionate about basketball and affirmed its pedagogical value, which added to the fact that he was a pioneer of 3x3, led him to being Director of School Basketball.
He also approached the history of sport from his perspective as a sociologist. Thus, we put together a team in the adventure of vindicating the 1950 Basketball World Cup champions, interviewing Jorge Canavesi, Ricardo González and Omar Monza, players who were sanctioned for more than a decade by the Liberating Revolution that overthrew Perón and declared them professionals, excluding them from the competition, along with more than 300 high-performance athletes who had had outstanding performances in those years.
A few days before his coronavirus was detected, we were imagining some possible tributes for León Najnudel, on the corner of Villa Crespo where the bar “El Dandy” used to work. And then no more, he was hospitalized and died a few days later. Those of us who were close, we felt that we lost the MVP, that the plague left our star player out of the game.
Tulio Guterman, Director - June 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 276 (2021)
Nostalgia and hope in the era of anti-cooperation
Polio was one of the most dangerous and contagious diseases of its time. Until the middle of the 20th century, it was considered a serious public health problem in most regions of the world. Two researchers, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, separately, shared the creation of the vaccine. Both also agreed on the idea of not registering the invention patent, which practically eradicated this disease from the planet. In Salk's words: There is no patent. Can the sun be patented?
In the middle of a pandemic that has no comparison in recent history, more than 3 million people have already died and the count goes on. Meanwhile, the owners of the laboratories that dispose of the vaccines (and their patents) do calculations and rub their hands in anticipation of fabulous returns for themselves and their investors, insensitive to the global tragedy that we are suffering.
In contrast, Cesar Milstein, an argentinian scientist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 affirmed that science will only fulfill its promises when its benefits are shared equitably among the world's truly poor. That message is present in the work of health workers who in long hours of work have responded from the front line to this global health crisis. To all of them our gratitude and appreciation.
Tulio Guterman, Director - May 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 26 No. 275 (2021)
Inclusive Education in Physical Education and Sports
The set of articles that make up the Monograph: Critical Perspectives on Disability in Physical Education and Sports represents a contribution so that those voices that were historically silenced, are heard and considered, in order to recover the dignity that is little by little taken away from them.
In times of human rights, it is imperative to understand the inclusive education paradigm and how it develops within the field of physical education and sports. It is necessary to criticize what has been instituted, to give rise to the establishment of new roles, which contemplate the demands of those who are frequently excluded, exploited and questioned in their human condition.
If you really want to build a fairer society, reading these articles is essential, because as a whole they show inequalities that we can lose sight of in our daily activities, but they also represent the desire for a more humane and dignified educational field, which we are sure it will come soon.
Mg. Emiliano Naranjo, Argentina - April 2021Videos Abstracts: access to the abstract videos page of this issue
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Vol. 25 No. 274 (2021)
Adding environmental awareness
Many studious argue that the pandemic we are experiencing is a product of the constant environmental damage that humans are inflicting on our environment. The deterioration is evidenced in climate change, air, land and sea pollution, the loss of biodiversity, overexploitation of natural resources, desertification and the melting of glaciers.
Degradation is increasing and is occurring in shorter times: some argue that in a few decades the planet's oxygen will run out. Drinking water is already considered a scarce good and is listed on the stock market. Are there alternatives to so much greed and self-destruction? Without a doubt. The Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015 are a valuable agenda to follow.
It is about investing in clean energy, not giving way to groups that want to gain power with short-term projects and with promises of infinite progress and consumerism that lead to the overexploitation of resources. Let's globalize environmental awareness before there is nothing left to plunder in our home, Earth.
Tulio Guterman, Director - March 2021 -
Vol. 25 No. 273 (2021)
Nepalese at the top of K2: from porters to heroes
Ten Nepalese, including nine of the Sherpa ethnic group, shocked the mountaineering world by reaching the last frontier in the Himalayas: the summit of the K2 in winter. In a sport that many times does not give a second chance, where a mistake is paid with life, they are the best in the world, similar to the Kenyan long distance runners, the All Blacks in rugby or the sprinters of Jamaica. They participated throughout the last century in practically all the expeditions that crowned (or not) the fourteen peaks of more than eight thousand meters of the planet. A Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, together with New Zealander Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Everest in 1953.
In recent years the Sherpas are rewriting history, turning the highest mountains of the world into a theme park, where inexperienced and adrenaline-hungry tourists experience the unique thrill of stepping on top of the planet for a good amount of money, which scandalizes the purists of this sport and at the same time puts one of the least traveled areas on the planet at risk of environmental collapse.
They have always been seconds, porters, guides, carrying tons of equipment for others to achieve glory. Pushing together, this time they were the protagonists who accomplished their dreams, the pride of Nepal and the international admiration: Nirmal Purja, Gelje Sherpa, Mingma David Sherpa, Mingma Tenzi Sherpa, Pem Chhiri Sherpa, Dawa Temba Sherpa, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, Dawa Tenzin Sherpa, Kili Pemba Sherpa and Sona Sherpa.
Tulio Guterman, Director - February 2021 -
Vol. 25 No. 272 (2021)
Media and racism in soccer
For some time, social scientists have raised concerns about the contents of songs heard in soccer stadiums. It is worrying that messages of extreme fanaticism, intolerance and machismo stand out.
Commentator-fans have proliferated in the mass media. Their widely heard voices reproduce for their audiences the same logic of excessive antagonism expressed by the most violent sectors of the fans. This intensifies tribalization in sport, moving soccer ever closer to the logic of war than to that of the game.
Many sectors are reacting to these events. Recently one of these commentator-fans had to publicly apologize for his racist comments in the face of widespread repudiation. There are numerous examples where sport has been and is a tool in the fight against injustice. It is important that the clubs and the Argentine Football Association express their repudiation of these discriminatory and xenophobic speeches so that they do not become natural and acceptable inside or outside the stadiums.
Tulio Guterman, Director - january 2021 -
Vol. 25 No. 271 (2020)
Maradona: Global Hero
Cosmic Kite, Genie, D10s, Cebollita, Inspirational Master of Dreams... something of each of us goes away with the death of Maradona, some of his pride, mischief, luck, creativity, courage, patriotism; but also his limitations, shortcomings and contradictions. The things that by excess or by default each of us knew how to achieve.
Diego Maradona was more than a soccer player. From his origins in marginal sectors, he was a popular figure who personified, with many of his actions, words and gestures, the aspirations of the most humble. He was the protagonist of what rarely happens, when someone who is perhaps expected to be docile, becomes unmanageable and irreverent, putting unexpected resources into play to overcome obstacles and emerge victorious.
He excelled as a player at the right time, which made him a magnet for the media. His legend will endure in time as a national icon, an idol of Argentines and as a global hero that we will certainly miss.
Tulio Guterman, Director - December 2020 -
Vol. 25 No. 270 (2020)
Thinking about School Physical Education
Physical Education is politically addressed as one of the elements that actively participate in education as part of cultural hegemony. In this process it is possible that it participates as an effective curricular device for regulating behaviors and possibilities of the body, displaying sport as content, as an accepted and acceptable way of performing movements.
It is necessary to discuss the concepts of didactic transposition and sports education in the Physical Education of the Educational System.
We invite you to review in this Monograph, the teaching of sport in order to critically deconstruct it in its shape, transmission and pedagogical tradition in Physical Education, since the distinctive characteristics of the tradition are ritual and repetition that are related analogously to the school way.
Mag. Mariana Sarni Muñiz & Dr. David Beer, ISEF-UdelaR, Uruguay - November 2020 -
Vol. 25 No. 269 (2020)
What's coming: integrated soccer
In the world of professional soccer, the one with the highest performance, formerly exclusively male, the presence of women is increasingly visible and significant: fans, leaders, referees, coaches, managers of players, applied professionals (doctors, psychologists, nutritionists and other scientists) and specialized journalists.
And also female players. The pioneers: Yuki Nagasato, world champion in 2011 and Olympic silver medal in London 2012, hired by Hayabusa Eleven of the second division in Japan, and Ellen Fokkema, who is part of the VV Foarut team of the fourth division, because of an initiative of the Dutch Soccer Federation to ensure diversity and equal opportunities.
Teams can already be mixed, integration is underway. So who will be the next team to join this social and cultural transformation? Which one in South America?
Tulio Guterman, Director - October 2020
