The FIFA World Cup, ICC World Cup and many other world championships have worked visibly towards global harmony... In 1999, they established the International Olympic Truce Foundation and the International Olympic Truce Centre to promote peaceful principles – using sports to establish contacts between communities in conflict and to create windows of opportunities for dialogue and reconciliation.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger attended a reception at the Chinese consulate in New York to commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Ping Pong Diplomacy," which helped put China-U.S. relations back on track.

A touch of basketball diplomacy is in play in Rangoon as Burma and the US continue to restore relations. Four American sports envoys are in the former Burmese capital to host a series of workshops with local youth.

“The use of sport in local or intra-national diplomacy has proven effective in the case of Tanzania between two formerly conflicting nations, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, with the conduct of sports paving the way towards cultural exchanges, which eventually led to the strengthening of ties between the two liberation movements,” the lawmakers said in their bill.

Studying the Olympics should be a required experience for anyone running for or serving in public office. Maybe then they could get over the persistent, uncompromising ego that figures so large in politics, and end up working for the common good.

Only cricket diplomacy will not do between India and Pakistan...Polo is one of the favourite games in both Baltistan and Ladakh. This is the traditional sport of both the regions. If this sport is encouraged then people from both these regions can be made to come together in dialogue and cross-border tours and travel which will open new vistas for reaching long-lasting peace.

Australia has always punched above its weight at the Olympics and was perhaps the first country to realize the soft power that can be harnessed by sporting success on the international stage.