Each year ISHPES recognises excellence in Early Career Scholars through the Gigliola Gori award. Gigliola is a long standing ISHPES member who did exceptional work in promoting and drawing young scholars into our field and who we honour in continuing to celebrate new, exciting and innovative work by those beginning their career as sports historians.
Each year we make the award to the author of the best piece submitted to an essay competition. I thank and acknowledge my fellow judges for the 2019 award, Patricia Vertinsky, Heather Dichter and Francois Cleophas. Although this year we had a small field, it was an exceptionally strong set of essays to review and assess with several very strong pieces of work. The strength of the field makes me even happier to introduce this year’s winner, Ornella Nzindukiyimana. I have been following Ornella’s work for several years and been delighted to watch as she has grown into an impressive scholar, of the kind we oldies look back over our shoulders at nervously, and who challenge us to work better to grown, expand and rethink many of the key aspects of our work. Ornella is an Assistant Professor in the School of Human Kinetics at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She recently completed her PhD at Western University in London, Ontario on the back of Masters study at the University of Ottawa. Her work has consistently impressed me (and others), and it is scholars of her calibre that tell me our field has a strong future.
Ornella presented her paper, ‘That’s Jean Lowe’: On Being a Black Canadian Female Track Athlete in 1940s Toronto, as the final keynote during the 2019 Congress in Madrid, Spain.
Ornella presenting her research during the Gigliola Gori Early Career Scholar keynote.
2019 ISHPES Congress organizer Gerardo Bielons, Early Career Scholar winner Ornella Nzindukiyimana, and ISHPES Council member Malcolm MacLean
