I like Mark Aguirre's attitude back in 1992. Wasn't good enough for the USA so thought of playing for Mexico instead, just 'cause it was nearby.

FWIW Coach K won't get a gold medal if the US eventually get up.

I am not sure why, but the winter olympics seems to be a lot worse than the summer olympics.

I have heard stories about up and coming European ski racers collecting passports {Swiss, Italian, Austrian whatever} before they or someone else decides which country they are going to represent.

In terms of the athletes i think its really up to that sport. Personally i think its great that China has thrown the chequebook at so many foreign coaches.

It doesn't bother me if there is a glaring need, but putting a player in a position where we have other possibilities doesn't sit well with me. For example previously we have used DMac & Darnell when we were low on point guards, which is fine with me, if we used one now we have CJ, Mills & Bruce it wouldn't be on. Redhage's spot probably could have gone to another aussie.

I'd like to think that if you played junior basketball (or whatever sport) for a country, you could be eligible to suit for them. Anything else, I'm less sure about. I much prefer the case of a Redhage (has history here) to those athletes who've never even visited the country. Holden and Hammon (recruited with a specific goal in mind) are a bit of a grey area.

I'm far less patriotic than most (figure this is just a patch of dirt I happened to be born on), but can appreciate the pride that comes with competing first for some sort of identity rather than a pay-packet. Unfortunately, I think some of that will be lost as things progress the way they are.

Ideally, it'd be about the absolute fastest and strongest rather than anything to do with country of origin, but that would obviously preclude team sports from basketball and soccer all the way down to relay teams and even doubles tennis or pairs rowing.

Was Holden recruited to play for Russia though? I thought he had played a number of seasons with CSKA Moscow. Essentially what Redhage did, IMO.

Probably a have a few less issues with that than Kaman.

Off Basketball, but still the same topic, I believe that the majority of athletes representing Qatar are in fact "mercenaries", mostly from Kenya or Ethiopia.

Qatar have plenty of cash and just buy the athletes in.

I understand why the athletes do it, I mean who would turn down a shot at getting to the olympics, but do have an issue that a "born" player may have missed out. e.g. Jawai over Redhage

tickle, not sure how much they planned that. Wikipedia says he joined CSKA in 2002 and was naturalised by order of a decree from Putin in 2003. Their version of events was that it was initiated by CSKA in order to combat import restrictions in their league. However, the direct involvement of Putin might suggest that it was fast-tracked quite specifically - maybe not dissimilar to Redhage's case in WA.

I'm assuming that there are restrictions across all sports on how many naturalised athletes you can suit? Could be that they allow a single naturalised player for team sports (water polo, hockey, volleyball, basketball, soccer) but not for anything individual, pairs or quads. Gets a bit silly when you have Brazilians competing for Georgia in the beach volleyball.

I think it should be fairly simple, if you lve in that country for a period of say 3 or 5 years, you are eligable to compete as a representative of that country, so long as you have gained citizenship. To say you need to be born in the country, that i hate to say, in some places could get you sued for racism!

My understanding is that FIBA used to have a rule that only one player who is not born of your nationality could play in your national team at sanctioned FIBA events. This would make sense for Redhage and Holden, but I think maybe the Germans had more than one at this tourney so maybe the rule is out the window.

If FIBA still have it then its a great rule...provides some opportunity but not enough to buy the citizenship of six-seven players.

I'd love to see cricket with this rule, England would be about as tough as Kenya, Canada and Mozambique.

I don't really see a problem with it. Each individual player/athlete is after all selling their citezenship to a new country and have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

How hard is it to reverse the proccess? or to change citezenship more than once from country to country?

At the end of the day I want to see the best of the best up against each other, if that means the majority are from one country that is fine with me.

Thought i would check in with this bit of info on Hammon. In the USA at the moment a big deal is being made on this topic as Hammon held here hand over her heart during the playing of the US national anthem before the game.


Reporters asked her about it and she replied with how she was praying for everyone in America and the usual yanky blah blah response.

At least she could pretend that Russia is her favourite country while wearing their national uniform

Coach K was born in the US. He even attended West Point and became a captain in the US Army. Isn't that American enough for you, Isaac?

I don't really have an opinion on the matter but in the case of Kaman..he actually had family born there so he got citizenship the proper way...holden was naturalised as he lived there long enough to be under their countries rules allowed to become a citizen(probobly shortened by putin for the club and national team)....im unsure about Hammon and the other Ex-Pats around the teams but thats my little add-on

Wikipedia says he joined CSKA in 2002 and was naturalised by order of a decree from Putin in 2003.

It's an interesting problem and ultimately insoluble. Many of the athletes are competing for some degree of monetary reward, as well as personal achievement. John Coates' remarks in the last two days make it clear that the notion of competing solely for glory are well past and that financial reward is expected with Olympic success.

In that context, it also becomes a case of professional athletes seeking to ply their trade and do we start applying ideas of "keeping the jobs in Australia"? That's particularly true of high profile team sports like basketball and soccer. Alternatively, do we treat them like any other professionals who want to settle in Australia and have a workplace skill that is in short supply? i.e., make it easier for them to enter and settle and become citizens of this brilliant country.

In the individual sports, nations have been selling citizenship in exchange for sporting prowess for years. Australia did it with Suleymanoglu (weigh lifting - naturalised and competing for Australia less than a year after getting out of Bulgaria), Tzsyu (boxing), Grigorieva (pole vaulting) and probably a bunch of others I don't know or can't remember.

I used to worry about this stuff. However, I've decided that there is a lot to dislike about the way the Olympics has changed in 100+ years and the spirit that now lies behind it, but nonetheless it's still a fantastic spectacle and there is a lot to enjoy and appreciate. This question of buying gold medals and denying "home grown" talent opportunity is just another negative that gets outweighed by the positives, in the end.

After all, we Adelaide folk are meant to support the 36ers in the NBL because they are the Adelaide team but should we send Ballinger and Tyndale home because they weren't born and raised in Adelaide? The general view is that the NBL becomes better by including - in a managed way - imported players. So maybe the same is true of Olympic sports too. If the locals who get displaced by a better import want to go to the Olympics badly enough, they will sign up with New Zealand, Fiji or St Kitts and Nevis. Or else get good enough to displace the imports.

FWIW

BTW - apologies for any spelling errors with people's names above.

Good post Peter.

I guess it really starts to become apparent that, in most cases, the medal tally isn't just about strength, training, population, but about a combination of those and the ability to attract and train new talent as well.