ABSTRACT
Sport and advocacy have a long shared history. Charity football matches in England and Scotland date back to the inception of the modern game (Kay and Wray, 2010). Likewise, the bicycle and bicycling have been used as tools for dissent, protest, and cultural critique for some time (Furness, 2005). A notable high watermark for sport and advocacy was the civil rights protests enacted by American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. But their protest, which was vilified at the time only to be celebrated decades later, was the culmination of months of advocacy (Hartmann, 1996). The Olympic Project for Human Rights, which formed in the months preceding the Games, organized a boycott of an indoor meet, coordinated protests and meetings on 35 college campuses, and threatened but eventually aborted an effort to stage an alternative ‘Third World’ Olympics. At the actual Games, several athletes wore black stockings and berets in their early heats and one, winner of the 100 meters, Jimmy Hines, refused to shake the hand of then International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Avery Brundage (Peterson, 2009).
