“More than Tours and Olympics”, the anti-racist Games are back in Bologna

From Friday to Sunday the third edition, under the banner of “no business and no competition”: 130 teams from all over Europe between tournaments, debates and solidarity

BOLOGNA – “We are not a big event, but we are a very big event”. The anti-racist Games are back: the third edition of the event is scheduled at the Bonori sports center in Bologna from Friday to Sunday for three days of non-competitive tournaments, performances, music, socializing, workshops and debates. There are 130 teams, coming from various European countries, already registered in the football, basketball, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, quidditch and touch rugby tournaments.

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“OUR BUSINESS IS RIGHTS, OUR COMPETITION IS SOLIDARITY”

“We are no business and no competition. All the big events taking place this year, because 2024 is one of those robust years, are instead for business and competition”, states the president of the Anti-Racist Games, Carlo Balestri, in a press conference: “A business every now and then unbridled who will see the Tour de France in a week in Bologna, the Olympics in Paris at the end of July and who is currently seeing the European football championships underway. We are quite distant from that world, simply because our business is rights that are often forgotten and our competition is aggregation, being together and solidarity”. Not surprisingly, during the event The Rights Corner will be active with testimonies and campaigns organized by the associations participating in the Games such as Amnesty international, Stop border violence, Street Lawyer, Doctors Without Borders, SOS Mediterranee and Mediterranea saving humans. In addition to the matches, the program also includes performances of boxing and popular Muay Thai and wrestling, a pizzica workshop, an African dance performance, the concert of the Grand Rosichino orchestra and some performances on the themes of femicide and violence suffered by female athletes and athletes.

VOICE TO PALESTINE AND TO NGOS ACTIVE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Furthermore, “Palestine will be given a voice with updates on the ongoing conflict – explain the organizers – and the NGOs active in rescues in the Mediterranean will present the testimonies of some refugees”. Participating in the Games “for us is a political act”, underlines Marco from the Gino Milli popular gym, which contributes to the organization of the event and which in Bologna, this year, “is part of a network of popular gyms which is creating a series of events towards 2026, when Italy will host the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina”. For a company like Gino Milli “being part of the anti-racist Games means promoting another type of sport, not the mainstream one – continues Marco – but the one that can be practiced by everyone”. In Bologna “there are not enough spaces for this type of sport and the Games represent a showcase and an important moment to reaffirm the power of popular sport“, concludes the Gino Milli representative.

THE CGIL IS LOOKING FOR SUPPORTERS ON TIKTOK: “COME AND CHEER FOR VITTORIO’S ATLETICO”

As Tommaso from the Labas-Tpo Social Municipalities states, “The numbers of the Games increase from edition to edition, it is a trend that should not be underestimated because it represents the ability of a city like Bologna to be a rich and fruitful space for sporting realities that address issues that go beyond sport and that understand the latter as a vehicle of rights”. Living the experience of the Games means “taking part and deciding which side to be on, even more so in recent years in which we see a society increasingly based on external and internal borders”. Among the entities that will participate in the Games this year there is also the CGIL: “Come and be a guy for Atletico Di Vittorio”, is the appeal spread with a video on TikTok, the platform on which the Bolognese Chamber of Labor she landed a few months ago.