Naturalized Athletes at the Summer Olympic Games 2016

[thiago_simoes 1,441]

It baffles me that Qatar and Azerbaijan (and now Bahrain) are easily attacked for having many naturalized athletes, but still people turn a blind eye to countries like Germany, Great Britain and even Israel and the United States.

 

If you take Oksana Chusovitina (artistic gymnastics) as an example: she competed for Germany in 2008 and earned a silver medal, but now she's back to Uzbekistan. It does look to me that she was paid to compete and earn a medal for Germany, and now that her job is done and she can't earn medals anymore, she's back to her country of birth. I know there is an "official" version of her competing for Germany because she decided to, with no money involved at all, but this is hard to believe in. Things like this make me think that it doesn't really matter why an athlete decided to compete for another country; they are still foreigners competing for another nation and it will always kind of look like cheating to me, especially because they can always represent their country of birth once they become too old or not good enough to earn medals anymore. 

 

I'm still upset that some people are always pointing fingers to Azerbaijan or Qatar, but still they are so laid back on this issue when it comes to a select number of countries. I'm aware that Azerbaijan and Qatar blatantly buy athletes, but some other countries also do this, just not in a blatant way, and still get away with it.

[MHSN 3,785]

And don't forget Kazakhstan, they even managed to buy athletes from professional buyers like Azerbaijan and Turkey  Nijat Rahimov World Champion in weightlifting, or a taekwondo girl from Turkey who won the quota.

[Pavlo 149]

1 godzinę temu, Near napisał:

Gabriela Dabrowski? Her father is from Poland and she speaks Polish (along with English and French) but she was born and raised in Canada.

i rather meant Wozniak. Dabrowski only as she had some choice, has Polish name and "origin". Does Wozniak still play?

[Pavlo 149]

45 minut temu, thiago_simoes napisał:

It baffles me that Qatar and Azerbaijan (and now Bahrain) are easily attacked for having many naturalized athletes, but still people turn a blind eye to countries like Germany, Great Britain and even Israel and the United States.

 

If you take Oksana Chusovitina (artistic gymnastics) as an example: she competed for Germany in 2008 and earned a silver medal, but now she's back to Uzbekistan. It does look to me that she was paid to compete and earn a medal for Germany, and now that her job is done and she can't earn medals anymore, she's back to her country of birth. I know there is an "official" version of her competing for Germany because she decided to, with no money involved at all, but this is hard to believe in. Things like this make me think that it doesn't really matter why an athlete decided to compete for another country; they are still foreigners competing for another nation and it will always kind of look like cheating to me, especially because they can always represent their country of birth once they become too old or not good enough to earn medals anymore. 

 

I'm still upset that some people are always pointing fingers to Azerbaijan or Qatar, but still they are so laid back on this issue when it comes to a select number of countries. I'm aware that Azerbaijan and Qatar blatantly buy athletes, but some other countries also do this, just not in a blatant way, and still get away with it.

don`t u see the difference? USA, Canada, Germany, Poland etc etc---we don`t BUY them. They live here for many years, have families, speak Polish language (or German), some were even born or went to new countries as kids. Some were just escaping from their countries. Some Curacao athletes have no choice, they have to become Dutch or Arubian etc etc.

On the other hand, Turkey, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and now UAE are really BUYING them, they often don`t live there, went there once or twice only, don`t know the language etc.

If u don`t see the difference, what can i say

[heywoodu 16,182]

Indeed, I think there is a pretty big difference between an athlete having moved to, let's say, Switzerland, living there for years and then competing for them or an athlete getting a ton of money to play volleyball in Azerbaijan instead of Cuba, followed by the authorities setting them up with some Azeri husbands (!) to marry and gain the Azeri nationality quicker. 

[OlympicsFan 860]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb thiago_simoes:

It baffles me that Qatar and Azerbaijan (and now Bahrain) are easily attacked for having many naturalized athletes, but still people turn a blind eye to countries like Germany, Great Britain and even Israel and the United States.

 

If you take Oksana Chusovitina (artistic gymnastics) as an example: she competed for Germany in 2008 and earned a silver medal, but now she's back to Uzbekistan. It does look to me that she was paid to compete and earn a medal for Germany, and now that her job is done and she can't earn medals anymore, she's back to her country of birth. I know there is an "official" version of her competing for Germany because she decided to, with no money involved at all, but this is hard to believe in. Things like this make me think that it doesn't really matter why an athlete decided to compete for another country; they are still foreigners competing for another nation and it will always kind of look like cheating to me, especially because they can always represent their country of birth once they become too old or not good enough to earn medals anymore. 

 

I'm still upset that some people are always pointing fingers to Azerbaijan or Qatar, but still they are so laid back on this issue when it comes to a select number of countries. I'm aware that Azerbaijan and Qatar blatantly buy athletes, but some other countries also do this, just not in a blatant way, and still get away with it.

I dont really agree about the Chusovitina case ...

She retired, then gave birth to her first child, then in 2002 her son was diagnosed with Leukemia and she decided to move to Cologne, because her son was treated there and then in 2006 she became a german citizen (4 years after she came to Germany) and competed for Germany as a way to say "thank you". I dont really know why we should "buy" an athlete after his retirement and then dont give him the german citizenship for another 4 years ... Probably it was all a big plan and Germany caused her son to get Leukemia, so that we can force her to come to Germany and thats probably also the reason why she still lives in Cologne with her son and her husband.

She herself said that she wil end her career after 2016 olympic games and she wants to do that in the dress of her birth country.

Edited May 6, 2016 by OlympicsFan

[vinipereira 3,462]

8 horas atrás, heywoodu disse:

If I'm not mistaken you'll probably have two "Dutch" brothers in your field hockey team, right?

 

Yes, Patrick and Yuri Van Der Heijden. They should be in the Olympic team

[thiago_simoes 1,441]

4 horas atrás, OlympicsFan disse:

I dont really agree about the Chusovitina case ...

She retired, then gave birth to her first child, then in 2002 her son was diagnosed with Leukemia and she decided to move to Cologne, because her son was treated there and then in 2006 she became a german citizen (4 years after she came to Germany) and competed for Germany as a way to say "thank you". I dont really know why we should "buy" an athlete after his retirement and then dont give him the german citizenship for another 4 years ... Probably it was all a big plan and Germany caused her son to get Leukemia, so that we can force her to come to Germany and thats probably also the reason why she still lives in Cologne with her son and her husband.

She herself said that she wil end her career after 2016 olympic games and she wants to do that in the dress of her birth country.

 

I promised I would never reply to you ever again, but this comment is just so awful that I have to say you are an ignorant person for mocking a serious case of leukemia. Being sarcastic about a devastating illness is absolutely disgusting, and I don't care if I get banned for saying this. I was talking about Chusovitina as an athlete. The whole ordeal with her son has nothing to do with this.

Chusovitina won a medal at the 2006 World Championships, so she was NOWHERE near retirement or in bad shape when she moved to Germany. She has never really been loyal to any country, so I wouldn't be surprised if she decides to compete for, say, Azerbaijan at this point, even though she said she will retire this year. In 2008, earning a medal for Germany would give her a lot more money than earning a medal for Uzbekistan. She knew that and she needed the money, so she switched countries. I don't judge her reasons, but the fact that she could just go back to Uzbekistan now that she is nowhere near the medal stand anymore makes it rough to see naturalized athletes as "normal citizens". They are citizens as long as they pay their taxes, but once they decide to move back to their country of birth, they are not "normal citizens" anymore.

Edited May 6, 2016 by thiago_simoes

[Ionoutz24 129]

 

Aaron Cook (taekwondo)

[Ionoutz24 129]

 

Siarhei Tarnovschi (Cayac canoe)