Naturalized Athletes at the Summer Olympic Games 2016

[Wanderer 1,738]

8 minutes ago, dareza said:

Athletes with Serbian descent that will represent other countries:

 

First is of course Slobodan Soro (waterpolo GK)-Brazil. He is I think only one that participate for Serbia in past.

2. Andrea Petkovic (tennis)-Germany

3. Kristina Mladenovic (tennis)-France

4. Dani Nestor (tennis)-Canada

5. Milos Raonic (tennis)-Canada

6. Nikola Karabatic (handball)- France

7. Dragan Travica (volleyball)- Italy

8. Vlada Jankovic (basketball)- Greece (?)

9. Aleks Maric (basketball)-Australia

 

 

 

 

Mladenovic was born in France. She was asked if she would play for Serbia but she refused, being born and raised in France. And how French she feels is visible in Fed Cup.

[DaniSRB 899]

@dareza Igor Kovacevic and Petar Tomasevic for France in water polo

Edited May 6, 2016 by DaniSRB

[dareza 911]

Just now, Wanderer said:

 

 

Mladenovic was born in France. She was asked if she would play for Serbia but she refused, being born and raised in France. And how French she feels is visible in Fed Cup.

yes, I know,but she has Serbian descent. It is really pity. Imagine our team with Kiki,Andrea,Ana and Jelena.

[dareza 911]

1 minute ago, DaniSRB said:

@dareza Igor Kovacevic and Petar Tomasevic for France in water polo

[hckošice 15,521]

5 minutes ago, Finnator123 said:

That thread name made me think for a few minutes...   Before i read the first 5 posts

 

[heywoodu 16,004]

26 minutes ago, Pavlo said:

what? he was just "meritoric" in showing 1 example. Still Germany didn`t buy her like Turkey does or even Brazil in field hockey. If she changes countries like gloves...well....what Germans coud do, to forbid her to start when she was entitled to according to German law?? You went totally over the top and i think you should be careful with such quick and harsh judgements of other people basing on totallympics posts. This is so immature

 

Did Brazil buy these field hockey players? You mean the two brothers who have a Brazilian mother and the player who was actually even born in Brazil and therefore already had a Brazilian passport?

[DaniSRB 899]

People, we went little off topic from original point of the thread, let's cool down and be nice at each other

[OlympicsFan 860]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb thiago_simoes:

 

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.

She moved to Germany in 2002, so why didnt we naturalize her right away if it was only about money for her (she won a silver medal in 2001)? According to your logic she only came to Germany because we "bought" her, so why did she live 4 years in Germany before competing for us and why didnt she go to "richer" countries (countries that invest more in sport) like Turkey, Russia or Azerbaijan?

 

In addition to that it makes absolutely no point for you to complain about Germany here. You said that she wanted to compete for Germany because winning a medal for Germany is more "valuable" for her than winning a medal for Uzbekistan, how is that the fault of Germany? Germany didnt pay anything for her to compete for us, so this is either the fault of Chusovitina or FIG (because they allowed it). In general many people from former soviet union came to Germany between 1990 and 2000 (Valery Belenky or Anna Dogonadze would be other examples), because they wanted to have a better life and you shouldnt blame them for that.

 

You basically said that Chusovitina moved to Germany, because she is a greedy person, without knowing anything about the true story, so its you who was respectless towards her and her family, please inform yourself next time before writing something. So why did we "buy" her in 2006 and not earlier in her career when she was even better? Why does she still live in Germany if she only came here for the money and now doesnt get money anymore? So you are saying she gets more money by winning a medal for Germany, but if she does "only" compete for Germany without winning a medal, its better for her to compete for Uzbekistan, because ... ?

 

In fact i would say that we lost many athletes in sports like football, taekwondo (Tazegül), equestrian, cycling (Hindes) or athletics (Litvinov), because we werent willing to pay them enough, so the idea that Germany buys foreign athletes is really funny to hear from someone who obviously has absolutely no clue about german sport ...

 

I think there is only one case of an athlete who got naturalized, although he had absolutely no connection to Germany and thats Chris Kaman. I hink we all agree that he for sure didnt need our money. You should also know that athletes get only 15.000 euros or something like that for an olympic gold medal, so if it would be about the money, no world class athlete would ever move to Germany.

 

You should rather focus on "real" cases like Stepko, Solnceva (who was really bought and even had to change her name) or Aregawi (who doesnt even live in Sweden most of the time), instead of trying to make up something about Chusovitnias reasons for her move to Germany.

 

Why shouldnt someone who lives and trains in Germany all year long (Chusovitnia) compete for Germany? At that time of her life (2006), Uzbekistan had absolutely no influence on her success. Did you ever ask yourself why she didnt win a single medal at world/european championships/olympic games from 1993 to 2001? I would even say that she wouldnt have won any medals after 1993, if she woudlnt have started to train in Germany, so for me it seems right that she decided to compete for the country that enabled her to win all those medals. Maybe she also thought that she could earn more money by competing for Germany (sponsorship) but for sure our federation didnt pay her to compete for Germany and we didnt ask her to come to Germany. She came to Germany for personal reasons (illness of her son) and then lived and trained here for a couple of years before she decided to compete for Germany. You can blame FIG (I agree that those nationality changes at such a high age/multiple nationality changes shouldnt be allowed, in any sport) or even Chusovitina (Maybe she thought that she might get more money from sponsors by competing for Germany), but dont act as if Germany directly paid her to come here.

[heywoodu 16,004]

Just now, DaniSRB said:

People, we went little off topic from original point of the thread, let's cool down and be nice at each other

I realize I even mentioned Paulo Duncker, the field hockey player who was even born in Brazil - but mostly grew up in the Netherlands - and now competes for Brazil. Completely forgot that of course he shouldn't even be in this thread...you know, born in Brazil, competing for Brazil  

[DaniSRB 899]

2 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I realize I even mentioned Paulo Duncker, the field hockey player who was even born in Brazil - but mostly grew up in the Netherlands - and now competes for Brazil. Completely forgot that of course he shouldn't even be in this thread...you know, born in Brazil, competing for Brazil  

next time you will chek better