Olympics Archives - News@91��ɫ

A Canadian pop star's new Olympics ad has some elbows up

egamulin — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:29:17 +0000

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How is sports marketing shaping up for Winter Games? 91��ɫ expert available for comment

egamulin — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:00:51 +0000

Sports and marketing expert Vijay Setlur

Feb. 12, 2026, TORONTO – As 91��ɫ is getting ready to cheer on alumna and former 91��ɫ Athletics track-and-field star Cynthia Appiah, who will start competing this Sunday at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games in the Women’s Monobob for Team Canada, 91��ɫ marketing expert is available to speak on marketing at the Olympics, including opportunities for athletes in niche sports and how brand and marketing plans are shaping up as we enter the second weekend of the Games.

Vijay Setlur is a marketing instructor at 91��ɫ’s Schulich School of Business specializing in sports and tourism marketing. Setlur has commented hundreds of times in the media on dozens of international and high-profile sporting events, including the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. He is also a freelance soccer analyst and former soccer journalist, and a consultant for Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football).

Setlur is available to comment on:

Athlete marketing and branding
Sponsorships and the Olympic games
TV ratings and viewership of the Games
Tourism opportunities coming out of the Olympic Games

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91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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91��ɫ expert available to comment on ICE at the Olympics

egamulin — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:30:52 +0000

Feb. 12, 2026, TORONTO – While security at major international sporting events is always intensive, recent Olympics and other major sporting events have devoted well over a billion dollars to security alone, making it one of the largest and fastest‑growing costs of hosting.

Assistant Professor Amanda De Lisio

91��ɫ Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health, School of Kinesiology & Health Science says recent fatal shootings by ICE and Border Patrol officers in the U.S., and their involvement in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games through U.S. Homeland Security Investigations have understandably heightened public concern about the agency’s conduct.

“When security partnerships expand without accountability, the people most likely to be harmed are low‑income, racialized, and migrant women and children, the very groups these initiatives claim to protect,” says De Lisio, who explores this theme in her forthcoming book Play Naked.

De Lisio has worked with researchers in Rio de Janeiro to examine what happened with sex workers during the 2016 Olympics and is currently working with groups in Los Angeles, which is one of the hosts of this year’s FIFA Men’s World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic Games, to examine what is happening on the ground.

De Lisio is also available for interviews in Portuguese.

She can comment on:

The growth of the mega-security apparatus at large sporting events
Understanding how displacement brought on by mega-events affects vulnerable communities
Sport mega-event construction and the financialization of housing
Analysis of involvement of ICE in the year’s games and potential ramifications for upcoming Olympics and other large sporting events

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Media Contact: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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The Olympification of Kinesiology: Highlighting Troubling Trends and Emphasizing Hope

egamulin — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Sport has long been intertwined with the study of human movement in North American post-secondary education. Whereas traditionally, the study of human movement and sport was housed within physical education programs, it is now predominantly offered through kinesiology programs that, more than ever before, align with narrowly defined health sciences. Much like how the Olympics celebrate “faster, higher, stronger” sporting bodies and performances, the current focus of kinesiology as a field of study is increasingly linked to an Olympic-like emphasis on educating students on how to produce “faster, higher, stronger” bodies, optimize performance, and individualizing narratives of health promotion. This intense fixation on functional movement and on narrow conceptualizations of health stands in contrast to kinesiology’s origins as “…the best option in promoting a broad-based disciplinary, professional, and performance approach to the study of physical activity” (). As scholars who study sport from a sociological perspective, we are concerned with these approaches to the study of human movement, as they minimize larger social forces and/or societal structures that impact experience of, access to, and opportunity for physical activity and sport.

The dynamics above are complicated by the postsecondary education landscape in which kinesiology programs operate with dwindling public sector funding, growing corporate influences, and the entrenchment of values that overemphasize individual efforts and competition, to name a few. These forces in part have increased the pressures on academic departments to produce work-ready graduates who respond to current labour trends, including the rise in demand for healthcare sector jobs, as opposed to cultivating critically minded graduates with a breadth and depth of theoretical and practical skills that can address challenges facing our communities. Like others in our field, we are troubled by the reproduction of high-performance sport values (i.e., narrow ways of thinking about what a body should be and do) within kinesiology (i.e., narrow ways of thinking about what a student/scholar should be and do), and raise critical questions about the newly revised Olympic motto “faster, higher, stronger – together” and its influence on both the Olympics and kinesiology.

“Together” on the Olympic Stage

The Olympic motto was revised in to “faster, higher, stronger—together”; a noteworthy change made in order to “recognize the unifying power of sport and the importance of solidarity.” This overture to the concept of solidarity provides opportunity to further reflect on kinesiology in contemporary higher education as described above. Despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) desire to have nothing distract from the spectacle of the Olympics, the Games always reflect, confront, and operate amid a myriad of complex social issues. This in part has led to many athletes over the years using the spotlight of their participation in the Olympic Games to speak out against oppression. In turn, the IOC has routinely attempted to restrict athletes’ agency and their ability to articulate their political views ().

This places some athletes in an incredibly difficult bind as they grapple with how to express their political viewpoints on the international stage knowing full well the risks they may incur. For example, in , U.S. shot putter Raven Saunders drew attention for their brightly dyed hair, manicured nails, and for wearing a full face-mask and sunglasses while competing. However, in , they were investigated but not punished by the IOC for forming an “X” with their wrists as they held their arms above their head while on the podium—what they described as a representation of “the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.” Contrast this with Afghan breakdancer Manizha Tanish who, in the inaugural breakdancing competition in the 2024 Games, ended her routine by wrapping herself in a cape (made from a burqa) bearing the words “.” She was immediately disqualified from the competition for her political protest, but expressed no remorse for her actions: “I thought: I’ve got one minute when the whole world’s watching me and I thought, what’s more important, my dream, my life, or women in ? I didn’t go there to win, that doesn’t matter to me.”

The hypocrisy of the new Olympic motto is not lost on us. stated in a press release that: “Solidarity fuels our mission to make the world a better place through sport. We can only go faster, we can only aim higher, we can only become stronger by standing together — in solidarity.” However, as shown by the IOC’s own actions, acceptable acts of solidarity are those that narrowly conform to the IOC’s aims and interests. As journalist Shireen Ahmed of the absurdity of Talash’s disqualification during a Games that professed a commitment to gender parity: “Either you support women in all their entities or you don’t.”

“Solidarity” in Kinesiology?

As a group of scholars who are working in one Canadian kinesiology program, we draw on these Olympic moments as parallels to what we see as pressures on kinesiology to conform to and reproduce narrowly defined understandings of movement and health and to support a political state project aimed at producing work-ready graduates rather than thought leaders of the future. As a part of a larger study that we conducted examining Canadian kinesiology programs, we interviewed academic leaders in kinesiology who routinely pointed to their need to demonstrate the value of their programs in providing work-integrated learning and experiential education opportunities, and to “demonstrate [their] post graduate success [rate] and that there is opportunities and job placements [for students].” In our interviews with kinesiology students, they defined the discipline singularly in bioscientific ways (physiology, anatomy, biomechanics, etc.) and spoke about how they saw kinesiology exclusively as a stepping stone to a future career in healthcare. Whereas our student participants were aware that the study of human movement also required some awareness of historical and sociological forces and structures—including those that work to exclude people and diminish solidarity against injustice—they focused on what they perceived as kinesiology’s unparalleled ability to make them higher, faster, and stronger in their future careers.

The question before us, as members of the kinesiology higher education community, centres on how do we push back against the narrowing of possibilities for students and scholars in our programs. How do we ensure that our students are able to secure meaningful careers for themselves, while also appreciating and protecting themselves as part of local-to-global communities with capacity, if not responsibility, to care for collective interests and identities? Stimulating such awareness and expression runs counter to the mindset that positions both the individual’s and nation’s economic success as dependent upon the protection and stimulation of the marketplace at all costs. One way we see this happening is by creating space for students, staff, and faculty to connect and voice concerns regarding work in a constantly changing healthcare labour market and to think through possible solutions together. In essence, perhaps the best way to promote community and collective action is to start in the very departments and academic units within which we find ourselves located.

Author Biographical Notes:

, is Full Professor and Chair of Kinesiology and Health Science at 91��ɫ. Her academic interests and expertise include: sociology of sport, health and medicine; risk and risk-taking in sport; sport and social inequality.

, is a Post-Doctoral Visitor in Kinesiology and Health Science at 91��ɫ. Her academic interests and expertise include: sociology of sport and sport coaching; sport coaching-gender-work nexus; sport, inequity and social change.

, is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Health Science at 91��ɫ.
Academic interests and expertise: sociology of sport; intersecting oppressions; diaspora, belonging, and community.

This was reposted with permission from Engaging Sports you can see the .

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Former Prof Bill Westcott is remembered, a 91��ɫ expert's op-ed on the DNC, Indigenous womanhood in poetry, and more

Nichole Jankowski — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 19:21:42 +0000

Former music professor Bill Westcott, who taught at 91��ɫ for over three decades, died on July 20. An accomplished and versatile pianist and composer, he was a master of ragtime and stride. Westcott came to 91��ɫ in 1979 and retired from full-time teaching in 2010. Rob Bowman, a Grammy Award-winning professor of ethnomusicology at 91��ɫ, was among Westcott's early students. "He was instrumental in my life," says Bowman. "He went the extra mile for students. He spent hours with me."

Mary Henderson, another early student of Westcott, joined a student choir he led. She says she was challenged and impressed by the range of music he chose: "We did Mozart, Gregorian chant, gospel music," she recalls. "It was incredible."

Brenna MacCrimmon, a mentee and bandmate of Westcott, says some of his former students told her, "He gave me a crappy mark, but he was my favourite prof," which she says fits with her understanding of her friend. "When he saw potential and ability in someone, he wasn't going to coddle them."

Professor Mike Cadó, a colleague of Westcott towards the end of his full-time teaching career, says he was inspired by, among other things, Westcott's unique method of demonstrating at the piano while teaching. "It was thrilling to see him play. He really drew you into the performance," he says. "It was like seeing a world-class European classical pianist. There was the same level of intensity."

Although he was a trained musician who could read music, it was not from the page, but from his body and soul. It was a great pleasure to be in the room with that.
MacCrimmon speaking to The Globe and Mail

Screenshot via The Globe and Mail

Professor Jack L. Rozdilsky writes about the 2024 Democratic National Convention in an op-ed for The Conversation and how the fast-changing political landscape and recent political violence has reawoken , also held in Chicago. In their op-ed, Professor Idil Boran and her co-author write about how is still lacking, despite years of calls for a co-ordinated global policy. Referencing their recent paper published in the , they argue a joint work program between the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is the best approach.

Professor Kenzie Allen is reclaiming her Indigeneity through poetry. Speaking to The Canadian Press, she says her poems are a way for her to take her Haudenosaunee identity back from those who labelled her too much or not enough. , and transmutes the British Empire into a reminiscing dude-bro desperate to hold onto his glory days.

Pilots at Air Canada have voted in favour of walking off the job as soon as mid-September. While the travel industry is seasonal, Professor Steven Tufts tells Toronto Star, adding that many pilots don’t just carry people but also cargo.

91��ɫ alumni and Canadian beach volleyball Olympic medalists Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson confirmed .

Professor Emeritus Paul Delaney talks to CBC about . The term supermoon isn't a scientific one. It comes from astrology and refers to the moon at its perigee — the closest point of its orbit to Earth. Blue moon refers to a second full moon in a month or the fourth in one season. Both happening concurrently is what made last week's full moon a super blue. "None of these, by the way, are true astronomical terms," Delaney tells .

Screenshot via CBC

Everybody likes the moon. You can see detail with the unaided eye and easily with binoculars. It's a fan favourite. Poetry has been written about, stories, murder, mysteries, I mean, you name it. Everybody has got a story about the moon.
Delaney speaking to CTV News

Do you have a new research study or an academic achievement to share? Contact media@yorku.ca with details. For daily 91��ɫ in the News highlights, follow on X.

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91��ɫ experts weigh in on local and international issues: from $18.4M in bonuses at CBC to Kamala Harris' campaign, and bats in Belize

Nichole Jankowski — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 20:05:00 +0000

Weekly roundup highlighting 91��ɫ faculty offering their academic expertise in the news

CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses this year after hundreds of jobs were eliminated. speaking to Toronto Star. He adds that while the public broadcaster did not do anything out of the ordinary, it should have been transparent about why it was awarding bonuses.

Does Kamala Harris’s brat summer have enough momentum to sustain her campaign through the fall, and into four more years of a Democratic-led America? Professor Yvonne Su and 91��ɫ alumna Tegan Hadisi being presented to the Democratic presidential nominee in an op-ed for The Conversation.

PhD student Gliselle Marin is looking to discover whether bats regularly diversify their diet, or if they’re being forced due to habitat loss. NPR. “And that will tell me every single thing that they’ve been eating.” Marin attended this year’s 16th annual “B��-��-�ٳ�ǲ�” in northern Belize, a gathering of 80-some bat researchers who converge to study the winged mammals. In another audio story, also by NPR, and how community engagement is important for conservation efforts. “We have an amazing wealth of resources in Belize, and I don't think that's lost on Belizeans, to be honest. I think sometimes we just need a reminder. Some people feel like they don't have a voice or a role to play, but I think everyone does,” she said. Faculty of Science Professor Elizabeth Clare also attended “B��-��-�ٳ�ǲ�” in July and spoke to NPR about her research. Clare worked diligently to identify the species of .

We cannot use the excuse of security to allow these kinds of practices to continue unchecked.
Petra Molnar, associate director of the Refugee Law Lab

Petra Molnar, an associate director of the Refugee Law Lab, weighs in on complaints about . Travellers accused screening officers of unprofessional, rude and invasive behaviour during body and bag searches. “We cannot use the excuse of security to allow these kinds of practices to continue unchecked,” Molnar tells CBC. She also talks to The Canadian Press about the Canada Border Services Agency’s plan to implement an app that uses facial recognition technology to keep track of people who have been ordered to be deported from the country. between the agency implementing the app and the people on the receiving end. It’s “very troubling that there is basically no discussion of … human rights impacts in the documents,” says Molnar.

Professor Suzanne MacDonald talks to Real Simple, sharing her and making a mess.

Screenshot via National Post

Last week, alumni and Canadian beach volleyball duo Melissa Humaña-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson won an Olympic silver medal. “We’re normally a winter sport country,” Humaña-Paredes told National Post, “but we are fricking good at beach volleyball, as well. I’m tired of ‘Don’t you live in igloo?’ questions. ” The pair finished with the best result in the country’s history in the sport. ", so I'm not surprised,” Humaña-Paredes told CBC. Humaña-Paredes was just three years old when Canada won its first beach volleyball medal — a bronze for the men’s team. Humaña-Paredes’ father Hernan Humaña was their coach. “ And so that created a big shift in beach volleyball. It was a big impact,” Humana told The Globe and Mail.

Professor Amanda De Lisio, co-author of a recent study into , talks to Dazed for an article about how the Paris Olympics were impacting sex workers in the city. French police established an ‘anti-pimping brigade’ in Paris, and De Lisio says crackdowns are already happening in L.A. ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games.

Do you have a new research study or an academic achievement to share? Contact media@yorku.ca with details. For daily 91��ɫ in the News highlights, follow on X.

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91��ɫ experts weigh in on global and local issues: from the Venezuelan election to the TTC's battle with birds

Nichole Jankowski — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 20:41:00 +0000

Weekly roundup highlighting 91��ɫ faculty offering their academic expertise in the news

Since the contested election on July 28, Venezuelans have taken to the streets demanding that President Nicolás Maduro acknowledge he lost to an opposition that is claiming a landslide victory. Following a protest in Montreal last weekend, , saying the country could face more unrest and violence in the near future if Maduro remains in power. “Maduro doesn’t represent change, he represents continuity,” says Bohn, noting that the results he announced are not “evidence-based.” In another article examining the international reaction to the election, with China and Russia endorsing the incumbent Maduro while the U.S. supports the opposition. “China prefers a stable Venezuela, and what they identify as [a] credible source of stability at the moment is Nicolas Maduro,” explains Rosales to Voice of America.

[Pierre Poilievre] can't not talk to lobbyists, he can't not talk to industry groups. He has to — that's his job as a potential prime minister, to understand how to make the economy go in the right direction, how to create jobs, how to get industry to want to come to Canada.
Professor Ian Stedman

Professor Ian Stedman comments on The Narwhal’s findings that federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre and his staff were communicating with lobbyists, including those in oil and gas, while Poilievre was publicly denouncing interest groups. Stedman says Poilievre’s anti-lobby remarks go against what the job requires. “That’s his job as a potential prime minister, to understand how to make the economy go in the right direction, how to create jobs, how to get industry to want to come to Canada.”

in National Parks Traveler. Reasons for the decline range from increasing land use, agricultural controls, a changing climate, disease, and the influx of non-native species. In the case of the rusty patched bumble bee, a focus of Colla’s research, she believes that diseases introduced by honeybees are to blame, with hives trucked back and forth across the country: “Honeybees are brought to California to pollinate almonds, then [head] northeast for apples. Bees are being moved all over, they’re stressed out, and it’s not natural.”

Professor Eric B. Kennedy shares his perspective on with CityNews, emphasizing its crucial role in understanding virus prevalence.

Screenshot via CityNews

“Disaster movies remain an important popular culture phenomenon,” writes Professor Jack Rozdilsky about the movie Twisters. , he explores what this genre of film can teach audiences, and what it often gets wrong: “Disaster studies scholars have considered disaster movies from many perspectives including their value for teaching people about disaster management and how these films shape the meaning and experience of disasters.”

Professor Gail Fraser weighs in on the noise cannons and netting successfully keeping seagulls from nesting on a TTC facility that houses streetcars. Due to health and safety concerns caused by a large amount of bird droppings, the Toronto Transit Commission installed the deterrence devices in March at Leslie Barns, near Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard E. She says it’s unlikely the birds will return to nest on the roof next spring because they’ll remember the failed previous attempts with the deterrence measures in place.

Elliott Rae, who coaches fencers at 91��ɫ, comments on in Toronto Star. It will go into the record books as Canada’s first Olympic medal in fencing, bringing national attention to the sport.

Do you have a new research study or an academic achievement to share? Contact media@yorku.ca with details. For daily 91��ɫ in the News highlights, follow on X.

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How the Paris Olympics is impacting sex workers in the city

egamulin — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 20:14:53 +0000

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Shiny day for Canada as 91��ɫ U alumnae vie for Olympic gold

sandramc — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 14:49:31 +0000

Vying for gold today, 91��ɫ alumnae Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson will take on world No. 1 Brazilian beach volleyball duo Ana Patricia Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa.

It’s history in the making for Canada regardless of the colour of the medal – silver is assured – as it will be the first Olympic medal for the country in women’s beach volleyball, and sure to be a shiny day.

Humana-Paredes competed with the 91��ɫ Lions women’s volleyball team for four years, was a three-time Ontario University Athletics (OUA) all-star and a Canadian Interuniversity Sport all-Canadian. She helped the 91��ɫ program win the OUA silver medal 11 years ago and later went on to coach.

Humana-Paredes father, 91��ɫ associate professor Hernán Humaña, who was one of the pair’s first coaches, that his daughter has been around beach volleyball since she was a small child. She would chase after balls while her fathered coached other players including Mark Heese and John Child who took home Canada's only medal in the sport – a bronze in men's at the 1996 Olympic Games – until today.

"I never in my wildest imagination thought they were going to play in the Olympic finals and here they are,” he told CTV live from Paris. Humaña went on to explain how special it is to see his daughter carrying on his life’s sport and accomplishing a first for the country.

Watch the game today at 4:30 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.

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More 91��ɫ experts available for Olympics commentary

egamulin — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 14:00:54 +0000

91��ɫ alumnae Melissa Humaña-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson compete for gold in Paris today, a first for beach volleyball for Canada, cheered on by Humaña-Paredes' father, three-time Olympic coach and 91��ɫ Professor who teaches a course on the history of the Olympics and is available for comment to media. Also this week in Paris, breaking makes its debut at the Games, Olympians get sick with bacterial infection and organizers revise the closing ceremony of the Games this Sunday after a controversial opening. 91��ɫ experts are available to comment on this and more.

Danielle Howard

In 2018, a U.S. conservative news commentator said that LeBron James should just “shut up and dribble,” after the NBA star gave his views about then-President Donald Trump in an ESPN podcast.

Danielle Howard, an expert in race, sport and performance.

Those comments inspired a documentary by the same name that explored the social and political influence of NBA players through the history of the league, which in turn was an inspiration for AMPD Assistant Professor ’s latest research at the intersection of race, sport and performance.

“The documentary got me thinking, does dribbling have more to say about politics, about Black life, then we have initially given it credit for?”

Howard is working on a book called Making Moves: Race, Basketball, and Embodied Resistance that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of basketball history. She examines America’s history of white supremacy and how comments like “shut up and dribble” reflect a continued dismissal of Black lives and experiences, images of the Black body on display through history from slave auctions to NBA drafts and how audience and media surveillance impacts movement. “The majority of bodies in the NBA are Black. So from a media standpoint, the majority of the media consumption we have of basketball is represented by Black bodies.”

She also looks at how Black athletes speak with their bodies, and how politics, history and social movements are embodied in athleticism, from the New 91��ɫ Renaissance basketball team to present times.

“Black performance in sport is not merely aesthetic, it has potential and purpose to be disruptive to the political and to ultimately incite change and liberation.”

Howard is available to comment on:

Race, politics and sport
Theatre and spectacle in the opening and closing Games
Aesthetics and virtuosity in Olympic sports such as breaking, gymnastics, diving and synchronized swimming
Sport as performance, particularly basketball

J-Rebel (Joseph Hersco), a youth worker in the Jane and Finch community in Toronto and expert in breaking.

J-Rebel

A half century after the birth of Hip-Hop among mostly Black and Latino, working-class youth in the South Bronx, breaking makes its debut as an Olympic sport. For longtime breaker (Joseph Hersco) from the Supernaturalz Crew, who helped develop and co-taught a course on the art of breaking at 91��ɫ with AMPD dance professor Mary Fogarty, he’ll be watching the competition on Aug. 9 and 10 with a mix of emotions and criticisms.

“There is a political side of Hip-Hop — it comes out of particular socio-economic conditions, right? I think a lot of that can easily get washed out, when the focus is around just who's winning in the competition,” says J-Rebel, who lives and works in the Jane and Finch community in Toronto. “But those things are intertwined in breaking — the politics, the cultural aspects, race, class and gender.”

J-Rebel, who teaches kids breaking and has travelled the world by competing in international breaking competitions comparable to the caliber we will see at the Olympics, picked up the practice himself decades ago with peers and in community centres in Jane and Finch, Lawrence Heights and Malvern where he grew up and lived. He says that while breaking is more accessible to the youth in his community — predominantly low-income and working-class — than a sport like hockey or football, there are still barriers to who might be able to compete at the highest level due to social inequalities that are still present in many communities in Toronto.

“It's not necessarily a predetermined thing because youth from these particular places have become resilient out of necessity, but your proximity to privilege and having resources is going to give you a better chance at developing your competencies.”

J-Rebel is available to comment on:

Origins and connections of breaking to hip-hop; roots in New 91��ɫ and Black diasporic cultural expression
Why the Olympics need breaking and not the other way around
Technical, cultural and social aspects of breaking
Ensuring access to breaking and sport in low-income and racialized communities.
History of breaking in Toronto

Martin Breaugh, an expert in French politics.

Martin Breaugh

France was on shaky grounds ahead of the Olympics, politically speaking, but the ruling parties dodged a bullet in the snap election by blocking the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party from taking power, says Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies and an expert in French politics.

“The presence of RN ministers at the Olympics would have been an impossible situation to manage with the potential of athletes boycotting such ministers, as well as local officials and maybe even delegations from elsewhere, especially the former French colonies, doing the same,” he says.

Breaugh is available for email, phone and teleconferencing videos and is currently on Central European Time six hours ahead of Toronto. He is also available for interviews in French and can speak on:

The political situation in France in the leadup to the Olympics
How the handling of the Olympics will impact public perception of the government
History of politics in France

Satinder K.Brar, an expert in water contamination.

Satinder K. Brar

Despite France spending more than $1.5 billion in cleanup efforts to get it in good shape before the start of the Olympics, the Seine continues to experience problems with water pollution, with the men’s triathlon posted due to unacceptably high levels. Lassonde School of Engineering Professor is an expert in environmental biotechnology and decontamination, with particular expertise in water. Brar is also available for interviews in French, Hindi and Punjabi, and can comment on:

Cleanup efforts of the Seine
Waste water contamination and potential risks to athletes
Athletes falling ill with Campylobacter jejuni bacteria
Other pollutants sometimes found in urban bodies of water

Lyndsay Hayhurst

For 15 years, Faculty of Health Associate Professor has been collaborating with self-identified women and youth in Canada, Uganda and Nicaragua to investigate the role of sport for social justice and ‘development’. This includes examining cycling as a possible catalyst for achieving mobility justice and gender equity; investigating how community sport for development programs may create novel possibilities for feminist climate-justice activism; and addressing physical inactivity among marginalized youth and women (cis and trans) through the use of trauma-and violence-informed approaches.

Lyndsay Hayhurst, an expert in community sports programming.

“We're arguing that these , and that certainly flies in the face of some of the approaches to coaching and sport that we sometimes see are taken up at the Olympics,” says Hayhurst, also the 91��ɫ Research Chair in Sport, Gender and Development & Digital Participatory Research.

Hayhurst and collaborators just launched a short documentary film - - and she is available to comment on:

Sport and gender equity
Gender-diverse youth and sport
Trauma-and-violence-informed approaches to sport, recreation and leisure

Sexual and gender-based violence prevention in/through sport for development
Climate change initiatives and ‘greenwashing’ at the Paris Olympics
Sport for development and peace initiatives and NGO activisms
Community sport and recreation initiatives, especially cycling and soccer

Please check online for updates to this roster and full list of available experts.

For a list of some of the 91��ɫ-affiliated athletes and medical team members participating in the Games, .

About 91��ɫ

91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ’s fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario’s Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contacts: Emina Gamulin, 91��ɫ Media Relations and External Communications, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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