Video extract from Not Just a Game, featuring Dave Zirin

FROM JACK Johnson to Billy Jean King, from Jackie Robinson to Muhammad Ali, from John Carlos to Kathrine Switzer, there have always been voices of resistance in sport, who refused to accept that sport and politics can be hermetically sealed from each other.

Those voices of resistance changed history.

When the indigenous Australian boxer Damien Hooper entered the ring at the 2012 London Olympics wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Aboriginal flag, he knew that he was breaking the Olympics "no politics" rule, which states that you can represent only your country or approved corporate sponsors. (Worth noting that these corporate sponsors include politically neutral entities like Dow Chemical, British Petroleum and McDonalds.)

After the bout, Hooper had no regrets, saying:

What do you reckon? I'm Aboriginal. I'm representing my culture, not only my country but all my people as well. That's what I wanted to do and I'm happy I did it. I was just thinking about my family and that's what really matters to me. Look what it just did--it just made my whole performance a lot better with that whole support behind me. I'm not saying that at all that I don't care (about a possible sanction), I'm just saying that I'm very proud of what I did.

But Damien Hooper's gesture of resistance was in isolated contrast to the de-politicized, sanitized and hyper-commercialized sport epitomised by the 2012 London Olympics.

In this clip from the film Not Just a Game, journalist Dave Zirin, celebrates those sports men and women who have refused to "rip athletics out of the political and cultural context it has always been a part of."

* Not Just a Game is distributed by Media Education Foundation
* Dave Zirin's website is www.edgeofsports.com
* His latest book is The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World