Sports
Intro to the U.S.
Sports
We believe in the power of sports to bring people together.
Sports represent both a medium and message. Organized sports are a medium for reaching out to young people across barriers of culture, race, ethnicity and gender. Participation in sports carries with it a message of tolerance, sharing, compassion, teamwork and the rule of law. Sports reach the younger generation with a message about the enduring values that all democracies share.
President George Bush has observed: “sports is the controlled combat of the civilized.” Like President Bush, I spent part of my career in the professional sports business. I have witnessed first hand the capacity of sports to build bonds of friendship among diverse peoples.
At the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen we are working in partnership with the major professional sports leagues in America and our Danish friends, to use sports to help young people in our two countries better understand each other.
As you learn more about our sports diplomacy initiatives in the following pages, please help us identify opportunities to employ sports as a more effective tool in bringing people together. After all, helping to reconcile differences in peaceful ways is the highest goal of all diplomacy.
James P. Cain
Ambassador