NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, with many people around the world having some free time in the last two weeks of the year, host Eddie Goldman gives you your year-end assignment. (No, there will be no test or quiz, but you will be judged in practice.)

First, study internationally what is going on in the world of sport. The International Olympic Committee has just announced a set of new proposals to combat doping, corruption, and match-fixing, in its Olympic Agenda 2020, which has been proposed by new IOC president Thomas Bach. Will these be adequate to clean up world sport? And how will these affect the combat sports?

Second, all the presentations are now online from the Play the Game 2013 conference.

Held October 28-31, 2013, in Aarhus, Denmark, 148 speakers addressed burning issues in world sport such as match-fixing, doping, lack of democracy and transparency, who benefits and who does not from the Olympics, bad governance, racism, women in sport, homophobia, the role of sports journalists, the recent mass protests in Brazil, and much more. Now online are presentations, audio, video, and photos from this conference.

Among the many essential presentations which should be studied were:

"The democratic noise of sport" by Jens Sejer Andersen.

"Making the World Safe for Capitalism: A Critique of Global Sport and Development" by John Nauright.

"The Democratization of Athletes: What if athletes determined who governed their sports?" by Peter Donnelly.

"Money, Power and Marionettes: The shift of Olympic Power" by Jens Weinreich.

In addition, the issues of concussions, head trauma, brain damage, and dementia, which were not highlighted at Play the Game 2013, are now being understood and discussed by more and more people involved in sports around the world, and this is also of particular importance to the combat sports.

So that's your year-end assignment: Study these and related issues, and follow the advice of Jens Sejer Andersen: "It is your turn to drive the funeral silence out of sport."

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

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The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

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Labels: combat sports, concussions, corruption, doping, Eddie Goldman, football, IOC, match-fixing, No Holds Barred, Olympics, Play Game, scandal, wrestling