POSTED: May 17th 2011
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NEIL WILSON: When is a passport to glory merely a flag of convenience?
THE NEIL WILSON COLUMN / An exclusive, authoritative series from Sports Features Communications
LONDON, May 17: Is the Olympic Games a competition for countries or people? Do Olympians compete for themselves or their nations?
I ask because a growing trend to change nationality to make qualification for Olympics easier or more rewarding seems to suggest that many Olympians do not care about the colours they wear. A flag of convenience is as good as any to them.
Last week in Rotterdam the world table tennis championship was dominated as always by Chinese. Not all, though, were playing in the colours of the People’s Republic.
There were Chinese-born players masquerading as Dutch, Spanish, Australian, Dominicans, Germans and even one playing for Luxembourg. One women’s singles match was between Lay Jian Fang and Li Jiao, one representing Australia, the other Netherlands.
Shen Yanfei, who played for Spain, does not even speak the language of her adopted country, according to her international
federation biography. All are what one international sports official
described as “migrant labourers”.
Athletics is rife with such people, a trickle in the 1990s becoming a flood after the Kenyan runner Stephen Cherono became Saif
Shaheen after being attracted to Qatar by a salary and a life pension.
Money is invariably the reason in switches from Africa to Arab countries. Greater financial support may also explain the reason why
two track and field athletes from the US have opted to bid for British
selection next year.
Money is far from the only reason. The American basketball player Becky Harmon switched to Russia when she could not make it
onto the US squad for the 2008 Olympics. She ended up playing against the US in a tournament.
Mixed motives
The US has enjoyed benefits the other way. Its team in Beijing had a kayaker from Poland, an athlete from Kenya, table tennis players
from China, a New Zealand triathlete and an Australia equestrian.
Their reasons were many, including convenience, marriage and
disagreements within their previous country but none moved
specifically for the monetary rewards.
Some federations have tightened rules because of the changes. The IAAF did but allows a switch in one year if both nations agree.
Wrestling’s FILA last year introduced a two-year suspension and only one change per country for each wrestling style in any calendar year.
The question remains: are Olympians competing only for themselves and is the country incidental? It was, of course, originally because at the first three Olympic Games of the modern era entry was by individual and there were no national teams. For most of its existence, the International Olympic Committee disapproved of national medal tables.
Now, though, those of us who cheer the men and women representing our country would like to think they have pride in the
colours they are wearing. And that they are not, as Becky Harmon
admitted, still singing the national anthem of another country and
speaking only its language.
NEIL WILSON reported his first Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. He has since covered another nine summer and nine winter Olympics for various newspapers, including The Independent and the Daily Mail with whom he has worked for the last 19 years as Athletics and Olympic correspondent. He was Britain's Sports Journalist of the Year in 1984 and is the author of seven books
Keywords · Neil Wilson · Becky Harmon
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