curious if your country has a star athlete that chooses to represent the country of their parent/grandparent or however long ago it was. Do you still root for them?
Additionally if you’re the country that that athlete is representing do you feel they’re worthy of being the standard bearer for your nation during the Olympics or do you feel they’re taking the spot of a true local who might be similarly deserving?
Examples like the French gymnast who represented Algeria, or the Irish marathoner reprinting Australia, or last winter there was an American snowboarding for China, cases like those
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Only if they had competed for Sweden before and was known for it. If I liked them and they then changed I would still like them, but if they never represented and were unknown then I wouldn’t.
Not quite the same but people in Kenya were pretty mad with Saif Saheed Shaheen a k.a Stephen Cherono for not only competing for Qatar, but setting a WR in their beloved 3,000m steeplechase.
What made them even more mad is that he practically lived and trained in Kenya the whole year. He probably only went to Qatar to collect his huge paycheck.
They need to have a passport of the country they represent, and thus are citizens of the country they represent. There are a lot of athletes in many sports with a double nationality, and thus they are eligible for both nations (although in some sports you do have to make a choice and you can’t go back on that choice if you’ve met certain conditions).
Take Sifan Hassan (she has three gold and three bronze medals from Tokyo and Paris combined). She is a refugee from Ethiopia who fled to the Netherlands when she was 15. She has since gained Dutch citizenship, and thus was eligible for both Ethiopia and the Netherlands. But since she only took up running in the Netherlands she chose to represent the Netherlands. The only people who say she isn’t Dutch are the kind of people you don’t want to associate with.
I’ve thought about this before and I would 100% represent the Philippines in something over the USA but I would only be hesitant to do so for the reasons others have said regarding not being good enough to make it for USA. Even if that were true for my hypothetical scenario, it would NOT be the reason I choose to represent Philippines over USA.
I’m that type of modern American who identifies themselves by their state and ethnicity first rather than which country my mom was in when the 9 months were up.
It depends for me. I always like to say culture is more important than blood. You could be 90% German, but if you haven’t lived a moment of your life in Germany, you are not German to me. You could be 5% German, but if you’ve lived here for 10 years and understand the intricacies of our society I am willing to accept you as German.
Technically, I could identify as French, Guyanan or Tanzanian (based on my blood), but I prefer to identify as German. Why? I’ve lived here my entire life, I speak the language, I live like my fellow countrymen and women. If the same goes for any fellow German who may have not been born here then I invite them to identify as German.
And anyone that identifies as German should be able to compete for Germany.
Sinead Diver is an Australian citizen, she’s not “repping other countries”, she’s repping one of her OWN countries.
Kaylia Neymour is a citizen of both France and Algeria though her father.
Eileen Gu is half Chinese half American and is entitled to compete for either.This is so weird, trying to exclude people from their own dual nations/heritages, or implying that those who immigrate and gain citizenship are never real citizens of that place is weird.