LONDON (Reuters) - The Black Lives Matter movement marched on in 2021 but to the beat of a quieter drum as sport moved from protest to action by implementing some of the change athletes helped put in the spotlight.
From tennis courts to soccer pitches and Formula One starting grids athletes took their protests into the living rooms of sports fans around the world in 2020 but this year it was away from the arenas and stadiums and in the boardrooms where BLM attempted to have an impact.
If any league or team in North America did not have a diversity and inclusion department last year most did in 2021, pressured by athletes and fans to come up with plans to address social justice issues.
Athletes around the world rose up in 2020 by joining together to show their outrage over racial injustice triggered by the death of George Floyd, a Black man gasping for air and calling for his mother as a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Floyd’s death forced a reckoning about racial injustice and gave a global profile to the BLM movement that has emerged in recent years to protest the deaths of African Americans in police custody.
Athletes in much smaller numbers and with less frequency continued to take a knee or raise fists this year.
However, there were none of the headline-grabbing displays such as those by Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka at the U.S. Open where she wore a mask with the name of a different Black American victim of police brutality before each of her matches.