09 August 2016

Volleyball in a hijab: Does this picture show a culture clash?

For the Times it was a "culture clash", for the Daily Mail "a massive cultural divide" between "the cover-ups" and "the cover-nots" - and for the Sun the cultural divide was not "massive" but "colossal".

The pictures of Egypt's women's beach volleyball team playing Germany swept the internet yesterday, but while some people focused on what divided the players, others focused on what united them.

"Hijab vs bikini thing aside, how much of a 'culture clash' is it really if you are both playing women's beach volleyball at the Olympics?" tweeted columnist Ben Machell.

CNN's Bill Weir described it on Twitter as an Olympic Rorschach test, asking: "Do you see a culture clash? Or the unifying power of sport?" [BBC] Read more