Athleticism is the pith and substance of any international sports competition. How many Canadians, perhaps with watering eyes, have watched athletes from this country proudly see our flag raised and heard our anthem played. Why should we assume any difference with Russia’s current regime? Symbols matter. Flying the flag and voicing the national anthem was absolutely essential to those Eastern dictatorial regimes. Only later when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took performance-enhancing drugs seriously and Berlin’s Wall toppled did we learn how so many of those drug-enhanced Eastern European medals were won. Many may remember when East German and Russian athletes earned bushels of medals at Olympic games. Hitler refused to shake Black athletes hands or acknowledge their victories. For example, at the 1936 Berlin Olympics American Black athlete Jesse Owen won four gold medals and two Black team colleagues Ralph Metcalfe (100 metres) and Mark Robinson (200 metres) earned silver medals. International sport is very much an exercise in politics and athleticism. It appears to have taken away the apartheid government’s argument that Mandela and the ANC were simply a front for communist “reds.” Apartheid was no defense against subversion. One impetus may have been the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Mandela and African National Congress (ANC) negotiations with South Africa’s government took place from 1990 when he was freed from prison and lasted until 1994. South Africa was excluded from the Olympic Games in 1984 and that ban remained in effect until it was re-admitted to the Barcelona Games in 1992 - although it was not until 1994 that Nelson Mandela cast his vote for formal abolition of apartheid. Olafson and I concluded that sanctioning a country by denying its athletes access to a global stage, eventually, would have a policy change consequence. In a book chapter titled “Sports and Politics” (1986), Dr. Gordon Olafson of the Faculty of Human Kinetics at the University of Windsor and I produced two distinct analyses of the role of international “sports sanctions” upon South Africa’s apartheid policy. In the mid-1980s when South Africa’s participation in the Olympics had been banned because of that country’s entrenched racist apartheid scheme, my colleague Dr. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receiptīrown-John: Politics and the Olympics are connected.The glow that comes off of them is flattering.” Agreed. She explains the outcome in the finished story: “When I came back the next day, it had set in rather, um, intensely, and I sat there thinking, Did I just ruin this project? But it actually came out beautifully. Yes, coffee-stained-as in, Leanne took her husband’s leftover pour-over brew and rubbed it on the walls. “I called my contractor and our painter, and I was like, ‘We’ve got to paint the ceiling white.’ That happened literally within a day of finishing and putting all of the furniture in.” Another example is the warm, coffee-stained walls in the cottage. “Twenty-four hours before the reveal, I still didn’t feel good about it,” says the designer. But some of the most interesting parts of the cottage are what can only be described as spontaneous. Leanne took her iconic white-on-white color palette and introduced delightful layers of texture that make you want to reach out and touch the many surfaces yourself. Needless to say, there was a particular type of fervor involved in getting the space ready on a deadline.īut whatever uneasiness may have been present amid such pressure is far from apparent in the finished product. “What does our future look like now? What would be best for quality of life? Once we actually looked closely at the life we had chosen, our priorities shifted in one swoop.” Moving was just the beginning: Leanne’s new home was not only slated for the Domino exclusive, but it will also be featured on an episode of “Home Again With the Fords,” a new series that debuts in January. “My husband, Erik, and I had a lot, and I do mean a lot, of discussions,” she says in the cover story. The designer-who stars in HGTV’s “Restored by the Fords” series alongside her brother, Steve Ford-recently moved to a town outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, Erik, and one-year-old daughter, Ever, from L.A., a decision in part fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and the universal draw to be closer to family. You can read the full story and take in all of the pictures over on Domino. Taking in the details of Leanne’s space can only be described as ASMR for design enthusiasts. Not in the creepy “I am peeping through your open window” kind of way-I’m talking about the near-hour that could be spent diving into the photos of the cottage on interior designer Leanne Ford’s property outside of Pittsburgh. There’s something therapeutic about getting lost in someone else’s carefully curated space.
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