The School of Humanities invites you to an online seminar titled Summer meets Winter: A historical perspective on African nations participating at the Winter Olympics by Dr Cobus Rademeyer.
A record number of eight African countries competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
What makes this more unique is the fact that Africa is regarded as one of the warmest continents in the world. The continent’s virtual complete lack of snow, further aided by global warming, is regarded as one of the most obvious hurdles for African Winter Olympic hopefuls to overcome.
Although athletes from the African continent have achieved many medal-winning performances at the Summer Olympics, this feat has not yet been achieved at the Winter Olympic Games.
The race to become the first African country to win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games will thus have to wait until the 2022 Beijing Games.
By 2014 less than a quarter of the 54 countries in Africa had ever competed at the Winter Olympics, yet the history of African countries participating at this event dates back almost six decades.
Of the fifteen countries that represented Africa at the Winter Olympics between 1960 and 2018, only seven countries participated in more than one Winter Olympics.
Sports historians however agree that the African continent’s progress at the Winter Olympic Games cannot be measured by medals alone.
The (mostly unknown) social history behind the continent’s involvement in the Winter Olympic Games since 1960 tells an inspiring story, while at the same time it continues to incite a strong debate on a variety of contemporary issues facing the continent.
Join in on this discussion on Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 16h00.
Click here to join the MS Teams seminar.
