For the past 15 years the U.S. has been recruiting pro baseball and basketball players to serve as diplomatic envoys to Muslim nations. Now with Dean Karnazes, we’ve begun sending adventure athletes abroad to build good will. [...]  The State Department launched its current sports diplomacy program after the September 11 terrorist attacks, largely to connect with and provide alternative activities to young Muslim youth who might be at risk of joining extremist groups. 

Sport has become an essential tool in the European Union’s soft power approach. Over the past few years, the political vision promoting economic development through sport has become a standard practice in Europe’s policies of solidarity and sustainable development. Yet, how can the European experience help improve the Olympic ideal of using sport to promote peace and prosperity?

The U.S. Department of State is collaborating with veteran ultra-marathon runner Dean Karnazes on a 12-day run along the Silk Road — an ancient trade route through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan — as part of the department’s sports diplomacy program and which will commemorate the 25th anniversary of those countries’ independence from the Soviet Union.

The Shaq show came to Havana on Sunday as NBA great Shaquille O'Neal put on a basketball clinic for local youngsters, becoming the latest emissary for American outreach to the people of Cuba. The 2016 Hall of Fame inductee and four-time NBA champion led star-struck kids in layup drills and coached scrimmages while onlookers cheered from the sidelines, part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored visit to foster people-to-people exchanges with Cuban citizens.

Call it the return of basketball diplomacy. The State Department on Friday named hoops legend Shaquille O’Neal the first ever “Sports Envoy to Cuba” and said he’d visit Havana on Saturday to hold basketball clinics for the island nation’s youth. The trip is a part of the Obama administration’s broader effort to increase cultural exchanges between Washington and Cuba after the two nations restored diplomatic ties last year for the first time in five decades.

Rwandan coaches are going to see what youth coaching in Park City is all about during a 10-day cultural exchange hosted by Kids Play International (KPI), a charity that uses sport to promote gender equity in communities impacted by genocide. From June 16-26, eight of Kids Play International's Rwandan coaches will be in town to discuss gender equality in youth sports and coaching techniques used in the U.S. in an event sponsored by the Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Muhammad Ali, the American three-time world heavyweight boxing champion, whose death at the age of 74 was announced by his family on Saturday, will be remembered as a superstar in the ring – but also as cultural icon who touched the hearts of people around the world – including China. Ali made two important visits to the mainland during this lifetime, which effectively helped to end the Communist Party’s two-decade-long ban on the sport of boxing.