Virtual environments (VE) are virtual social spaces that provide powerful means for creating, activating and modifying virtual bodies—Avatars—without dependencies on biological factors,formal rules and explicit conventions. VE offer unlimited possibilities to create the desired body and express personal bodily preference in virtual sport spaces without restrictions regarding established roles and behavioural expectations. Such a VE is Second Life (SL) in which the user is represented by an Avatar. This study focuses on a virtual sport space: the Fitness Club of Second Life. It examines the rules and regulations of this virtual space along with the role of 26 Avatars as bodily representations, including their bodily behaviours-exercises-practices in the SL Fitness Club. The data for this study was selected through systematic observation of 26 Avatars (apx. 180 hours) during March, April and May 2015, followed by detailed descriptions of single phenomena. Regarding the structure of space and bodily behavior, the results indicate less differences between sport virtual spaces and sport physical spaces, the opposite of what we had originally assumed. According to the results, the Avatar Fitness Club appears to be a highly individualistic and narcissistic environment. Moreover, every user can perform his/her bodily activities in a rather liberating way, occasionally surpassing biological limitations. When the Avatars exercise they imitate the movements of the physical sport world, namely they mimic the physical body. Further studies are needed to show the influence of an Avatar’s performance-bodily exercises on the real user, the individual behind the computer screen.

Nikolaos Patsantaras (2015) Cosmopolitanism: An alternative way of thinking in the contemporary Olympics, European Journal for Sport and Society, 12:2, 215-238, DOI: 10.1080/16138171.2015.11687963   ......................................ABSTRACT:      This contribution offers an alternative theoretical approach in examining the modern Olympics, using a cosmopolitan perspective. The vast literature and repeated discussions on cosmopolitanism are supplementary reactions to globalisation. The development of Olympic sport is closely linked to globalisation. A great number of controversial issues affecting the Olympics have already been analysed using globalisation concepts and theories that tend to ignore the potential cosmopolitan effects that the contemporary Olympics could have as a global phenomenon and as a common global culture. This paper endeavours to rethink the relationship between the Olympics and cosmopolitanism today, using a cosmopolitan lens. Keywords: Olympics, cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitanisation, environment, Olympic competition                         

The issue of violence on the soccer field in our time is a very complicated sport-social phenomenon. The subject has already been extensively researched, but there is still room for further inquiry. In accordance with internationally accepted theoretical tendencies, previous studies examining the issue of violence in soccer in Greece have focused on the understanding of this phenomenon as it relates to either the social conditions in society in general, or to the social characteristics of the spectators of the soccer clubs that are involved in that violence. This study looked at the issue from another point of view. Specifically, it focuses on the understanding of the phenomenon as it relates with the space, the time and the structural conditions under which it is produced. For that purpose, a questionnaire was administered to 696 subjects divided into four different groups of individuals related to soccer. The results, divided in three categories, indicate that, when we examine issues of violence in soccer, we should consider how a variety of socialcultural and emotional conditions inside football stadiums are shaped, keeping in mind that those conditions are specific in each game. This would enable us to differentiate violence in sport from other forms of violence and would assist in understanding the limits of responsibility of football institutions and organizations. Key Words: violence, football stadium, emotional energy, structural characteristics and conditions, expectations.

A closer examination of fundamental Olympic values and symbolic meanings— expressed in the Olympic charter and recognized in Olympic protocol— reveals that they correspond to the basic perceptions in the Declaration of Human Rights. The Olympic project seems to be an ideal vehicle to promote the United Nations values and principles.Conseuently it is important to examine to what extent Olympic action communication is actually used to serve such objectives-goals and to discuss its effectiveness and legitimacy within this framework. Olympic ceremonies, for example, provide an international-global platform of mobilization for individuals, social groups, countries and nations who have been unfairly treated or remain disadvantaged, such as the mass demonstrations around the globe during the Olympic relay from ancient Olympia to Beijing in protest of the violations of human rights in China. This paper disccusses the role of the IOC in accordance to human rights and examines, on a theoretical level, why the Olympic project in general, including the Olympic symbols and ceremonies generate and activate discussions on human rights. This article, as a side effect or by-product reveals the difficulties inherent to the implementation of the human rights project outside of Olympic space and time. One need point out here, with regard to the methodological perspective, that the use of terms such as universalism, internationalism, globalization, enlightenment, nation and nationalism serve as a heuristic approach, in order to link or connect some of their cognitive contents and elementary meanings to the subject.

When citing: Kamberidou, Irene & Patsantaras, Nikolaos (2006). "Social Capital and Gender Equity in Sports”. Presentation at the international conference Social Capital and Sport Governance in Europe: Trust and the Use of Social Ties, 4-5/12/2006, organized by the Universitat Commerciale Luigi Bocconi and IPAS- Institute of Public Administration and Health Care Management ‘Carlo Masini’, in collaboration with the European Commission, Milano Italy. © Irene Kamberidou presenting paper at Bocconi University, Milano 2006, at conference entitled  Social Capital and Gender Equity in Sports.