Athletes with origins from other Countries

[heywoodu 16,182]

5 hours ago, hoversaBR said:

It's a policy our sports have; most of them don't like foreigners, even as coaches. Well, our national soccer team had a policy of never hiring a foreign coach, and here we are. 

 

But theoretically, in Lucas's case, I imagine they don't see it as a rule violation. For all intents and purposes, he's been Brazilian since birth by law. So would it be like working with the fine print? 

No, their policy had always been that they were very strictly against having athletes compete for them who had previously competed for another country, with the 'previously competed for another country' being the main thing  

 

For me, even no matter what the law says, Braathen is just as Brazilian as I assume you and the Brazilians here on Totallympics are, since of course he has a Brazilian parent. When we have a child, he/she will for sure grow up in the Netherlands, but we would certainly consider them equally Dutch and Brazilian simply because they have one Dutch and one Brazilian parent. I like Braathen, I hope he does well (who would have ever thought Brazil goes into the Winter Olympics with multiple medal chances?!) and for me, he 100% deserves to compete for Brazil, my only issue is not with him personally, but with the way he is likely to take every single possible spot for staff and whatnot for the Olympics away from all the non-superstar athletes in the same federation. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

I hope even more former  and current Gaia Brunello keeps it up in biathlon though. Definitely less likely to medal, but whereas we'll not be likely to ever be close to superstar Braathen, Brunello is close enough to maybe one day have a vacation partially in our home  

[copravolley 565]

21 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

No, their policy had always been that they were very strictly against having athletes compete for them who had previously competed for another country, with the 'previously competed for another country' being the main thing  

 

For me, even no matter what the law says, Braathen is just as Brazilian as I assume you and the Brazilians here on Totallympics are, since of course he has a Brazilian parent. When we have a child, he/she will for sure grow up in the Netherlands, but we would certainly consider them equally Dutch and Brazilian simply because they have one Dutch and one Brazilian parent. I like Braathen, I hope he does well (who would have ever thought Brazil goes into the Winter Olympics with multiple medal chances?!) and for me, he 100% deserves to compete for Brazil, my only issue is not with him personally, but with the way he is likely to take every single possible spot for staff and whatnot for the Olympics away from all the non-superstar athletes in the same federation. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

I hope even more former  and current Gaia Brunello keeps it up in biathlon though. Definitely less likely to medal, but whereas we'll not be likely to ever be close to superstar Braathen, Brunello is close enough to maybe one day have a vacation partially in our home  

Gaia Brunello would probably choose Italy if she had the chance to compete there – she doesn't have that chance now, but 15-20 years ago she could, because biathlon was at a much lower level here than it is now. We barely had four or five people for the relay team. At the beginning of the 21st century, we had far more success in women's cross-country skiing than in biathlon. It was change just until around 2014-2015, thanks to succes Wierer and Vitozzi.

Edited September 22, 2025 by copravolley

[copravolley 565]

Braathen likely had some conflict with the Norwegian federation, but he already had enough name recognition to secure a private team with the support of powerful sponsors. If he had had to start as a youngster with a federation as poor as Brazil, I doubt he would have had a no chance of breaking through in high. So, Norway was his only option at the very beginning of his sports career.

Edited September 22, 2025 by copravolley

[Orangehair43 285]

8 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

 has an odd exception.  Anyone from any Commonwealth country can join the Army & get a passport that way.  And, depending on military criteria, serving soldiers can also play semi-pro sports like......rugby.   So we get a lot of Pacific Islanders volunteering for the Army and ending up in the    rugby teams.

I don’t think there has been many who come through that route. Most Pacific Islanders players either moved to play or because they dad moved to play. 

Edited September 22, 2025 by Orangehair43

[Orangehair43 285]

12 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

The problem is that 1) very quickly becomes 3).   

 

The USA has the NCAA 

Qatar and Bahrain have "sports academies"

Spain and Portugal have well-financed athletics clubs whereby people can establish long-term residence before transferring nationality

French & Belgian Football Clubs are notorious for signing up teenage African players who then become eligible for Les Bleus etc etc  

 

So it is easy to blame Turkey but really they are just not as good at pretending as everyone else.  

Neither France or Belgium have had a player of any note at all come through that route any time recently. 

Edited September 22, 2025 by Orangehair43

[dobar_73 158]

Aleksandar Komarov who just won a gold medal at the wresting world championships, use to represent Russia, but married to a Serbian, and moved here to the country. I think that is fine. 

 

 

[avlar 485]

Ukraine just lost 4 judokas.

Lytvinenko switched for UAE, 2 youngsters for Slovenia and 1 for Poland. All of them have good perspectives and I expect medals for them next years.

All of them live abroad due to the war so we could hardly keep them.

[copravolley 565]

31 minutes ago, avlar said:

Ukraine just lost 4 judokas.

Lytvinenko switched for UAE, 2 youngsters for Slovenia and 1 for Poland. All of them have good perspectives and I expect medals for them next years.

All of them live abroad due to the war so we could hardly keep them.

Who to Poland?

[Dragon 2,059]

21 hours ago, Orangehair43 said:

I don’t think there has been many who come through that route. Most Pacific Islanders players either moved to play or because they dad moved to play. 

Annabele Fasuba is a brilliant young teenage sprinter. Her father Olusoji Fasuba is a former Nigerian sprinter who was the African 100m record holder who then joined the British Royal Navy so Annabelle was born in Plymouth in Devon

 

[Dragon 2,059]

21 hours ago, Orangehair43 said:

I don’t think there has been many who come through that route. Most Pacific Islanders players either moved to play or because they dad moved to play. 

Divine Iheme is the fastest 14 year old over 100m in the wordd. Both his parents are Nigerian and his mother served in the British army

Edited September 23, 2025 by Dragon
typing error