Sport, race and politics have often collided throughout history.

Sports is a great tool and a great teacher and can be a very very powerful instrument. But for many black athletes, even the

greats, when they talked about race, the world wasn't always ready to listen.

It was like things that he had been bottling up for decades suddenly came kind of bursting through a dam.

You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Manveen Rana.

Today, Sport and the race to change the world. It has the power to change the world.

It has the power to inspire.

It has the power to unite people in a way that little us does.

Back in 2000, in an iconic speech, Nelson Mandela told a venue packed with some of the greatest sports men and women in the world

about what sport could achieve.

Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.

It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers.

Standing behind him on stage was the legendary Olympic

Herdler, Edwin Moses, winner of 122 consecutive races, a giant in his field, and the chairman of the

Laureus World Sports Academy.

I was drafted to be the chairman, I think that afternoon, on a Sunday afternoon,

he gave this wonderful speech.

The thing that I remember most is the look on the face of the audience. I got the

stadium view that I traditionally would get by being on the track. I'm looking

up into the stands and that night I was looking out into the audience. the This is the greatest weapon mankind has to resolve even the most intractable difficulties.

That speech was made at the first Lorious World Sports Awards.

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