The knees of the women’s soccer teams before the Olympic Games open

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Great Britain and Chile hit a knee on the field before the game, and the US and Sweden teams kneeled before Wednesday’s clash.

It’s been nearly five years since former NFL player Colin Kaepernick knelt during the pre-game national anthem to protest racial inequality. Since then, and especially since the death of George Floyd in police custody in May 2020, players in other sports and around the world have made this gesture of solidarity with the equality movement and against the persecution of people of color.

“For us, it is right to stand up for human rights. There was contact with the US team,” Swedish defender Amanda Elistest said after the match. “It feels good to do that. It’s something we defend as a team.”

The New Zealand women’s soccer team injured a knee before the opening match against Australia. The Australians remained standing with their arms locked together.

The Australian team posed for a pre-match photo with the country’s Aboriginal flag.

Midfielder Tamika Yallop said after the match that the team opposes racism but wants to show support for “Indigenous Australians”.

“Obviously we are in favor of non-racism, we definitely wanted to take a stand and show our support for that, and we also wanted to represent not only Keah Simon and Lydia Williams within our team, but also the broader Indigenous Australians, the special Australian glow to shed light on that aspect of it as well. We just wanted to We stand together for Australian culture and the indigenous side of us,” Yallop said.

Kia Simon and Lydia Williams are Aboriginal members of the team.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach stressed, Wednesday, that kneeling does not violate the organization’s rules against protesting.

“That’s allowed, it’s not a violation of the rules,” Bach said.

In April, the International Olympic Committee upheld a ban preventing athletes from demonstrating or demonstrating at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but the committee later announced that it was amending that.

Under the new guidelines, athletes can protest on the field before a competition or during their presentation, as long as the expression is not targeted “directly or indirectly, against people, countries and/or their dignity”.

CNN’s Courtney Kolb and Theresa Waldrop contributed to this report.

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