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Olympic skaters find partners, success in new countries - Fourth-Place Medal - 2010 Olympics Blog - Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Olympic-skaters-find-partners-success-in-new-co?urn=oly,216269 - broken link)
What do you think of Olympic athletes who switch countries to compete? Should a person have to be a citizen in order to compete for a country? Who should decide? It seems wrong, to me, and not really in the Olympic spirit to do this. This article is about pairs skaters, but I think there is a skier who left Canada to compete for Australia. I'm sure there are others.
Kind of makes your skin crawl doesn't it. I think they should have to be a citizen in order to compete for a country. Isn't the whole Oylmpics about representing your country in games with other countries?
Olympic skaters find partners, success in new countries - Fourth-Place Medal - 2010 Olympics Blog - Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Olympic-skaters-find-partners-success-in-new-co?urn=oly,216269 - broken link)
What do you think of Olympic athletes who switch countries to compete? Should a person have to be a citizen in order to compete for a country? Who should decide? It seems wrong, to me, and not really in the Olympic spirit to do this. This article is about pairs skaters, but I think there is a skier who left Canada to compete for Australia. I'm sure there are others.
Interesting you mentioned this, my friend & I were just talking about this last night while watching the Olympics. I don't agree w/it, it's like these other countries are just recruiting good athletes to help out their own interest. Shouldn't the athlete be a citizen of the country their competing for, I mean as an olympian, wouldn't you want to be a competitor for your own country, not some pretend temporary one?
I'm torn. While I like the idea of each country being represented by their own I also like to see the best of the best in each catagory, and sometimes their are too many "bests" in one country to actually make the team.
Bad idea. When the 1956 Hungarian water polo team went to Melbourne, they still played as Hungarians even though they despised their Soviet masters and virtually all members were preparing to defect immediately following the games. Very inspirational story and they even made a movie about it.
The female from the pairs skating moved from Japan to Russia to fulfill her dream of being coached by her current coach. She took Russian citizenship and changed the spelling of her name for the purpose.
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The mogul skier had dual citizenship Canada/Oz. After having been hassled by the Canadian team for not 'focusing' on skiing, he moved to Australia where he satisfied the residency requirements to compete.
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There is a Russian (formerly) cross country skier who moved to Canada where he took on citizenship and competes for Canada.
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To imagine, twenty years ago a successful competitor wouldn't have been allowed out of the Soviet Union to compete for another country and those athlete citizens of Soviet satellite countries were forced to compete for the USSR. The case mentioned by summers73 may be an exception, or one of very few. Exceptions for which I admire those compettitors who chose to defy the Soviets.
Some remain amateur. That being a part of the subject of the Aussie freestyle skier, Dale Begg-Smith. Seems Mr. Begg-Smith is an independently wealthy Internet businessman. Although his product is not appreciated by all, computer spyware, he doesn't require press attention or company endorsements. Apparently a source of the contention with the Canadian team resulting in his defection to Oz.
As the reporter explained, many competitors use their sport for attention to develop a persona for which they gain endorsements as income.
I think this rule applies only to figure skating pairs. Other than that, you need to be a citizen. It is not too hard though, because many countries, inclusing US grant citizenships to people with exceptional athletic ability.
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