Sport and nationalism are profoundly intertwined, with athletic competitions frequently serving as symbolic arenas for national pride, conflict, and diplomacy. The Olympic Games, for instance, have a history replete with political tensions, from their use for propaganda at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the Cold War-era boycotts of 1980 and 1984. This political dimension also manifested in boycotts against apartheid-era South Africa, notably the 1976 Montreal Olympics protest by African nations. Furthermore, nationalism shapes national sports policies, evident in Ireland's past rules banning Gaelic sport players from British-origin games and Spanish football club Athletic Bilbao's Basque-only player mandate. Such deep connections highlight how sport, despite its supposed pure ethos, consistently reflects and reinforces national identity and geopolitical realities.