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91��ɫ experts have got you covered for Paris Olympics

egamulin — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:23:22 +0000

July. 26, 2024, TORONTO – While the Olympics are a show of international friendship and athletic excellence, they are also about politics and diplomacy, tourism, social change and spectacle, and sometimes even espionage.

Hernán ��ܳ��ñ��, three-time Olympic coach and expert on the History of the Olympics, is in Paris cheering on his daughter in beach volleyball.

“The Olympics has the potential to be such a positive force for good in the world,” says 91��ɫ Faculty of Health Associate Professor , a three-time Olympic coach who teaches a course on the history of the Olympic Games and will be in Paris July 26 onward cheering on his daughter, . “Every Olympics strives to meet its ideals, and every Olympics falls short — but I am an optimist, I believe each Olympics gets better and better.”

��ܳ��ñ�� and other 91��ɫ experts are available to give comment to media on everything from nationalism in sport and why the economic pressures on athletes are getting even worse, to branding and tourism opportunities, the evolution of women’s basketball in Canada and how large sporting events intersect with sex tourism and displacement of low-income people, and more.

Hernán ��ܳ��ñ��

��ܳ��ñ��, who helped Canada secure a bronze in the Atlanta ’96 games, teaches in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Science at 91��ɫ. He was an early coach for his daughter, who along with her Canadian beach-volleyball partner and fellow 91��ɫ alumna Brandie Wilkerson, is currently ranked fourth in the world and is in Paris competing for a medal. ��ܳ��ñ�� played for the Chilean national volleyball team and came to Canada as a political refugee during the Pinochet years, a journey which he documented in his book Playing Under The Gun: An Athlete's Tale of Survival in 1970s Chile. He is available from Paris to comment on the history of the Olympics and how political and social events intersect and affect the modern games from their inception in the late 1800s to now. ��ܳ��ñ�� can also offer interviews in Spanish.

Topics he can speak to include:

History of the Olympics
Sport and nationalism
Gender issues in sport
Compensation and treatment of athletes

Parissa Safai, expert in the sociology of sport, health and social inequality.

Parissa Safai

The Canada Soccer drone-spying controversy is, in part, a great example of how much more aggressive Canada has become on the international sport scene in pursuit of wins, says , professor in the Faculty of Health and Chair of the School of Kinesiology and Health Science.

“In many ways, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics marked a pronounced shift in Canada’s attitudes towards success on the Olympic stage and our high-performance sport system became even that much more intentional about ‘owning the podium’,” says Safai. “For an athlete, gold medal-winning performances demand not just an unconditional commitment to physical training and skill development, but presuppose disposable money and disposable time, as the financial support from governments is just not enough.”

Many athletes are highly reliant on their parents for financial support, and the costs of producing a gold-medal winning performance has gone up, adds Safai, putting more pressure on high-performance athletes, and making their finances even more precarious. Safai is an expert in the sociology of sport, health and social inequality. She is available for phone and video conference interviews and can speak to:

Sports medicine and sports related pain and injury
Sport risk-taking
Sport and social inequality and gender equity in sport
Barriers to physical activity in communities
Sport policy and governance

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

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.

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

Vijay Setlur, expert in sport marketing and tourism

Vijay Setlur

“France is already the most visited country in the world, but hosting the Olympics would diversify the destination and its visitor economy,” says , a marketing instructor at 91��ɫ’s Schulich School of Business specializing in sports marketing and tourism marketing. “People visit the country for its museums, galleries, architecture and culinary offerings, but Paris will now be able to attract more international sporting events to capitalize on the growing sport tourism segment and elevate its status as a sports city.”

Setlur attended and gave commentary at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and is also a consultant for Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football). Setlur is available to comment on:

Canadian soccer drone scandal and how it might affect the perception of Canada Soccer and sponsorship activity
Sponsorships and the Paris Olympic Games
How the NFL and ICC are hoping to leverage flag football and cricket, making its debut at the LA28 Games, to engage younger consumers
TV ratings and viewership of the Games
Use of technology at the Olympics

Sarah Bay-Cheng, expert on the history of women's basketball in Canada

Sarah Bay-Cheng

“For me, sports is another kind of performance: It's aesthetic, it's time-based, there's an audience,” saysProfessor , dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at 91��ɫ and a former NCAA basketball player. “As the playwright Sarah Kane once said, the difference between theatre and a football (soccer) match is that you don't know how the football match is going to end.”

Bay-Cheng’s research focuses on the intersection of performance and media, including how digital technologies create performance conditions in museums and other cultural heritage sites. In this capacity, she is co-curating a gallery exhibition for the Museum of Toronto on the history of basketball in Toronto that will open in the spring of 2025.

“In Toronto basketball didn’t follow a linear development. Different versions of the game emerged at different times and in different places. Part of the work of preparing the exhibition has been to dig into the history of basketball in Canada and what has made Toronto such an exceptional place for the sport. As a former player, I’ve been very interested in learning more about the history of women's basketball in Canada as relation to, but also very distinctive from the history of the sport in the United States.”

Bay-Cheng is available to comment on the history of basketball in Canada, particularly the women’s game:

The American and Canadian roots of the game
How women’s basketball started among primarily white, upper-class women in the U.S., Ontario and eastern Canada, and why they were no match for a team from Western Canada that adopted a more aggressive style of play
How Title IX in the U.S. was a game-changer for women’s basketball
How both the men’s and women’s games have become more international, with training concentrated in NCAA schools
Sports as mediated performance

Amanda De Lisio, expert in sport mega-events, sex work, displacement and migration

Amanda De Lisio

During the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, Faculty of Health Assistant Professor partnered with researchers in Rio de Janeiro to examine what happened with sex workers during the games.

“One of the narratives that follows the sport mega event is related to the involvement of human trafficking,” says De Lisio in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science. “We work with people who are often the target of these anti-trafficking strategies to find out what is actually happening on the ground, are they being trafficked or exploited in their labour? And how their patterns of labour and migration in the city may change as a result of the mega event.”

De Lisio is working with groups in Los Angeles, which will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic Games to examine what is happening on the ground there ahead of the games. Her , published earlier this month, looks at the security apparatus of the Rio Olympics, and argues that “despite the enormous investment and facade of newly militarized host communities, insecurities remained, and ‘security’ as a practice failed to be guaranteed.” De Lisio is also available for interviews in Portuguese.

She can comment on:

Understanding sex work as labour in a vulnerable sector and how displacement brought on by mega-events affects sex workers and other communities
Sport mega-event construction and the financialization of housing
Local groups in Paris decrying Olympics-related displacement of low-income people

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 this week 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
Other pollutants sometimes found in urban bodies of water

Lyndsay Hayhurst

Lyndsay Hayhurst, an expert in community sports programming.

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.

“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 your inbox or online for updates to this roster.

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. �۴ǰ��’s fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario’s Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. �۴ǰ��’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

About 91��ɫ

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

The post 91��ɫ experts have got you covered for Paris Olympics appeared first on News@91��ɫ.

New freshwater database tells water quality story for 12K lakes globally

roshanp — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:03:23 +0000

TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2020 – Although less than one per cent of all water in the world is freshwater, it is what we drink and use for agriculture. In other words, it’s vital to human survival. 91��ɫ researchers have just created a publicly available water quality database for close to 12,000 freshwater lakes globally – almost half of the world’s freshwater supply – that will help scientists monitor and manage the health of these lakes.

A sunset caught over Boundary Lake in Killarney Provincial Park. Photo by Amanda Liczner

The study, led by Faculty of Science Postdoctoral Fellow Alessandro Filazzola and master’s student Octavia Mahdiyan, collected data for lakes in 72 countries, from Antarctica to the United States and Canada. Hundreds of the lakes are in Ontario.

“The database can be used by scientists to answer questions about what lakes or regions may be faring worse than others, how water quality has changed over the years and which environmental stressors are most important in driving changes in water quality,” says Filazzola.

The team included a host of graduate and undergraduate students working in the laboratory of Associate Professor in addition to a collaboration with Assistant Professor of Wilfrid Laurier University, Associate Professor of Illinois State University and 91��ɫ Associate Professor .

The researchers reviewed 3,322 studies from as far back as the 1950s along with online data repositories to collect data on chlorophyll levels, a commonly used marker to determine lake and ecosystem health. Chlorophyll is a predictor of the amount of vegetation and algae in lakes, known as primary production, including invasive species such as milfoil.

“Human activity, climate warming, agricultural, urban runoff and phosphorus from land use can all increase the level of chlorophyll in lakes. The primary production is most represented by the amount of chlorophyll in the lake, which has a cascading impact on the phytoplankton that eat the algae and the fish that eat the phytoplankton and the fish that eat those fish,” says Filazzola. “If the chlorophyll is too low, it can have cascading negative effects on the entire ecosystem, while too much can cause an abundance of algae growth, which is not always good.”

Warming summer temperatures and increased solar radiation from decreased cloud cover in the northern hemisphere also contributes to an increase in chlorophyll, while more storm events caused by climate change contribute to degraded water quality, says Sharma. “Agricultural areas and urban watersheds are more associated with degraded water quality conditions because of the amount of nutrients input into these lakes.”

David Lake as the sun goes down in Killarney Provincial Park. Photo by Amanda Liczner

The researchers also gathered data on phosphorous and nitrogen levels – often a predictor of chlorophyll – as well as lake characteristics, land use variables, and climate data for each lake. Freshwater lakes are particularly vulnerable to changes in nutrient levels, climate, land use and pollution.

“In addition to drinking water, freshwater is important for transportation, agriculture, and recreation, and provides habitats for more than 100,000 species of invertebrates, insects, animals and plants,” says Sharma. “The database can be used to improve our understanding of how chlorophyll levels respond to global environmental change and it provides baseline comparisons for environmental managers responsible for maintaining water quality in lakes.”

The researchers started looking only at Ontario lakes, but quickly expanded it globally as although there are thousands of lakes in Ontario a lot of the data is not as readily available as it is in other regions of the world.

Postdoctoral Fellow Alessandro Filazzola standing at the edge of David Lake in Killarney Provincial Park. Photo by Amanda Liczner

“The creation of this database is a feat typically only accomplished by very large teams with millions of dollars, not by a single lab with a few small grants, which is why I am especially proud of this research,” says Sharma.

The is published today in Nature’s journal.

-30-

91��ɫ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. 91��ɫ students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. 91��ɫ U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, 91��ɫ is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. 91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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Hundreds of high school students to learn how to change their world

roshanp — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:13:01 +0000

91��ɫ to host one of Canada’s largest youth environmental conferences

TORONTO, October 15, 2019 – A love affair with big, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs has meant Canadians drive the worst climate polluting vehicles in the world. In Ontario, transportation is the number one source of climate pollution, says .

One of Canada’s most respected environmental lawyers Dianne Saxe will be a keynote speaker, along with Larissa Crawford and Sam Demma, at , a full-day conference on Thursday, October 17 meant to inspire youth to become environmentally active citizens.

Hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the conference will be attended by about 875 youths from 45 high schools across the province, including Toronto, 91��ɫ Region, Peel Region and Halton Region.

Saxe – who served as a watchdog over Ontario’s environmental, energy and climate performance as Environmental Commissioner of Ontario until April – is now a McMurtry Fellow at �۴ǰ��’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and Osgoode Hall Law School.

“I’m really worried,” said Saxe. “Every fossil fuel in Ontario has gone up, except coal. We know what to do but we’re not doing it.”

Saxe is encouraging voters to choose a federal leader in next week’s election who understands the seriousness of the climate crisis and is committed to carbon pricing: “I have children and grandchildren. Everyone can do something, and voting is the most important. If we get the climate wrong, nothing else is going to matter.”

The Change Your World conference allows students to do interactive, hands-on workshops that expand their passion for the environment. Each student will choose one out of 20 workshops to attend, plus one mandatory one.

In one workshop on fighting plastic pollution and climate change, the students will see pieces of plastics found inside a real bird nest to help understand how plastics negatively impact wildlife and to empower them to take action to protect nature.

The youths will also have the chance to learn the true cost of fashion, from the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions to use of highly toxic chemicals, as well as strategies to stand up for climate change inspired by former Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future campaign.

�۴ǰ��’s , led by Professor Deborah McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice, will explore stories on the land and teach the youths how Indigenous storytelling can illustrate justice and environmental issues. All students will participate in the workshop, which helps youth identify, analyze and develop solutions to the largest sustainability challenges in their own communities.

WHAT: Change Your World conference for high school students to learn how to create a more environmentally sustainable future

WHO: Dianne Saxe, environmental lawyer and 91��ɫ’s McMurtry Fellow

WHEN: Thursday, October 17, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with Dianne Saxe’s keynote address at 9:30 a.m.

WHERE: Vari Hall at �۴ǰ��’s Keele Campus (see #30 on this ).

RSVP: Please RSVP to the media contact below.

91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: Vanessa Thompson, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 647-654-9452, vthomps@yorku.ca

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