Bernard Lagat: Athletics “not doing enough” on Social Justice

[Bernard Lagat]
Bernard Lagat: “Sometimes I feel like we [in athletics] are not doing enough. But at least if you try even if I do a little bit of my share at least it is hitting somewhere, it is getting somewhere rather than me being quiet.”
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Track and field athletes should be able to protest about social justice without fearing punishment, USA middle-distance runner Bernard Lagat has said.

Lagat, who competed for Kenya before switching nationality after living in the US from 1996, said that he questioned whether competitors in athletics were “doing enough” in comparison to their peers in other sporting fields.

Colin Kaepernick in American football, Naomi Osaka in tennis and LeBron James in basketball all played a key role in a summer in which Black Lives Matter became a dominant story, Lagat argued.

“Sometimes I feel like we [in athletics] are not doing enough,” he told BBC Sport Africa.

“But at least if you try even if I do a little bit of my share at least it is hitting somewhere, it is getting somewhere rather than me being quiet. And as a sports figure I think that is what we should be highlighting without fear of retribution.

“We should be free to express ourselves like the way all these amazing athletes have been doing.”

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