Are we facing a summer of sporting protests? – podcast

It began with a protest at Britain’s biggest horse racing event. Members of the activist group Animal Rising scaled the fences at Aintree and attempted to stop the Grand National. As stewards and fans intervened, the protest managed only to delay the race for 14 minutes. As if to help prove the protesters’ point, one of the horses in the race was killed in a fall.

As chief sports reporter Sean Ingle tells Nosheen Iqbal, it was followed just days later by a stunt by another activist group. This time the target was the World Snooker Championship; play was postponed when a Just Stop Oil protester managed to clamber on to the the snooker table and launch an orange powder bomb over proceedings. This weekend, all eyes will be on the London Marathon.

As environment correspondent Damien Gayle reports, the pivot away from mass protest to high-profile stunts shows a divergence in philosophies that still divides the climate action movements. Is building popular support more important? Or bringing the maximum attention to the cause?

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