Dear colleagues,
Dear colleagues,it is with great pleasure and honor that we, as editors, share with you this historic moment of the launch of the first volume of our journal of Sports Philosophy in Portuguese. Thus, ATHLETICA begins its journey with the mission of developing the discipline and studies in its theoretical, technical and practical variants. All research contributions are welcome in a spirit of openness, quality and sharing in all areas, and this first issue has the good fortune to feature a majority of articles dedicated to surfing, a sport so beloved in Brazil and Portugal (see ATHLETICA link : https://www.afdlp.org/?page_id=652).
Sadly, this launch coincides with the death of our beloved Professor Manuel Sérgio, a master and visionary whose work indelibly transformed thinking about sport in Portugal and the Portuguese-speaking world.
In the book Filosofia do Desporto, which we recently had the honor of publishing (https://www.afdlp.org/?page_id=642), Manuel Sérgio left us one of his last texts, “Motricidade Humana: o itinerário de um conceito” [Human Motricity: the itinerary of a concept]. In it, he reminds us that sport is, above all, an essentially human manifestation, beyond the mechanistic reductions of the body to a mere instrument. From his earliest writings, he challenged us to see an existential dimension in motor skills, where movement is not just displacement in space, but an expression of meaning, a place of transcendence, an encounter with others and with oneself.
Shortly before his passing, he spoke words to us that we will never forget: “Thank you for building with AFDLP what I always dreamed of doing and couldn’t.” But he did it. He succeeded by sowing the seeds of a new way of thinking, by challenging generations to look at sport beyond its functionality, by inspiring us to recognize movement as a place of freedom and creation.
We would like to thank everyone for their contribution and effort, and we hope that the philosophical community will embrace this historic moment of transatlantic construction. We would like to invite you to join us at the bi-annual congress, which will be held in Brazil this year, 2025.
Constantino Pereira Martins and Luísa Ávila da Costa
Editors of ATHLETICA
