You're an athlete that just wrapped your college eligibility and want to take a shot at being a professional track and field athlete. You have the ability to represent the United States or Sweden thanks to your parentage. You look at your options:
United States - sign a rather limiting contract with a major shoe company that offers low base pay but bonuses for performance. If you get injured, the shoe company can reduce your base pay or drop you altogether. You bear the costs of obtaining health insurance, coaching, and equipment shipping. The national federation, USATF, offers no financial support and does very little to market you in non-Olympic years but gets to make money off of your name/image/likeness.
Sweden - the national federation offers you financial help and training grants to defer your costs. You can sign a shoe company deal while the Swedish federation also helps to broker side deals with federation sponsors and brands seeking greater exposure in European markets. You are heavily promoted by the federation and local sponsors. Your prowess in a niche event creates national pride and makes you a celebrity thanks to these marketing efforts. When you retire, you are still very much in demand as a national hero instead of the answer to a trivia question on a track nerd message board.
Two reasons for an American to pretend at foreign-ness for track purposes: (1) less risk when it comes to making teams; (2) it’s their only hope of making it to a championship.
Obviously Mondo could make any team in the world, so it’s not (2). But one of the favorites to make the US team bombed out in the prelims at the Trials, and that isn’t a worry if he just takes his risk-free annual selection for Sweden.
Armand "Mondo" Duplantis. Louisiana boy. Arguably the greatest living athlete, competes for Sweden, where he links are, at best, tenuous. Who's responsible for this thumping failure that's constantly rubbed in America's face?
I think you guys are missing one of the biggest reasons. When Mondo made the original decision, he was very young and thus not as dominant as he is now. He might have had an off day at the Olympics/Worlds trials and not made the US team. Whereas Sweden just put him on the team, no competition necessary.
Armand "Mondo" Duplantis. Louisiana boy. Arguably the greatest living athlete, competes for Sweden, where he links are, at best, tenuous. Who's responsible for this thumping failure that's constantly rubbed in America's face?
We know what you're trying to say here, but your fallacy is in thinking that the pole vault is of any significance to your typical American. Hint - it's about as meaningful as racewalking. And that's not a knock on Mondo, it's just that most people could not care less one way or the other.
So how is Puma making so much bank off of him? Not enough Swedes to keep them competitive.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
He wanted to be able to compete in world championships and Olympics without going through the hyper competitive US trials. In other words, he doesn’t believe in the American value of meritocracy. Therefore we don’t want him. Don’t need him either. We won over 30 medals without him.
Armand "Mondo" Duplantis. Louisiana boy. Arguably the greatest living athlete, competes for Sweden, where he links are, at best, tenuous. Who's responsible for this thumping failure that's constantly rubbed in America's face?
I think you guys are missing one of the biggest reasons. When Mondo made the original decision, he was very young and thus not as dominant as he is now. He might have had an off day at the Olympics/Worlds trials and not made the US team. Whereas Sweden just put him on the team, no competition necessary.
Mondo vaulted high enough as a junior in high school to have secured bronze at the previous year's Rio Olympics
As a senior in high school at the Louisiana state meet (essentially an exhibition for him) he was only 2cm from the silver medal performance at Rio
Everybody in the T&F community has known for quite some time he was going to be the most dominant vaulter since Bubka
Not to say you aren't wrong that he did it to ensure an off-day or minor injury before/during the US olympic trials wouldn't keep him from the Olympics
I had heard Team USA wouldn't make his dad an official team coach, so Team Duplantis said ok no problem we'll go to a country that respects us
Team USA fumbled the bag on this one hard, whatever the actual reasons are
I bet if Nike were to give him a contract similar to Sha'carri's 20mil/5yr in order to respresent the US, he would sign that contract faster than you can tie your shoe laces.
If you mean they offered this before he chose Sweden, then yes of course. But now, there's no way he would take that. He has more than enough money, lives half the year in Sweden, has a Swedish GF, and has become a Swedish legend. Betraying all of that for some money he doesn't need would guarantee him hate for the rest of his career, plus he'd have to miss the next Olympics while waiting out the transfer period. There's literally no sum of money that could make him switch to represent the USA.
I had heard Team USA wouldn't make his dad an official team coach, so Team Duplantis said ok no problem we'll go to a country that respects us
Team USA fumbled the bag on this one hard, whatever the actual reasons are
Yeah, I've heard similar things. Keep in mind that he was 15 when he said he would compete for Sweden. I don't know if money was really a factor; it seemed more like it was just about having beef with USATF and knowing that qualifying for every global championship would be a lock if he competed for Sweden, while one bad day at the USA trials could knock him out.
He was overlooked by the corrupt national selectors and he found a foreign government to pay him a whole bunch of money to give him citizenship and represent a country where he has no family connection and has never even lived.
Oh wait, that’s runners from somewhere else I’m thinking of…
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
I think you guys are missing one of the biggest reasons. When Mondo made the original decision, he was very young and thus not as dominant as he is now. He might have had an off day at the Olympics/Worlds trials and not made the US team. Whereas Sweden just put him on the team, no competition necessary.
Mondo vaulted high enough as a junior in high school to have secured bronze at the previous year's Rio Olympics
As a senior in high school at the Louisiana state meet (essentially an exhibition for him) he was only 2cm from the silver medal performance at Rio
Everybody in the T&F community has known for quite some time he was going to be the most dominant vaulter since Bubka
Not to say you aren't wrong that he did it to ensure an off-day or minor injury before/during the US olympic trials wouldn't keep him from the Olympics
I had heard Team USA wouldn't make his dad an official team coach, so Team Duplantis said ok no problem we'll go to a country that respects us
Team USA fumbled the bag on this one hard, whatever the actual reasons are
Like TAC before it, USATF needs to go away. Or at least the selfish clowns that have been running (ruining) it the last decade+
Mondo vaulted high enough as a junior in high school to have secured bronze at the previous year's Rio Olympics
As a senior in high school at the Louisiana state meet (essentially an exhibition for him) he was only 2cm from the silver medal performance at Rio
Everybody in the T&F community has known for quite some time he was going to be the most dominant vaulter since Bubka
Not to say you aren't wrong that he did it to ensure an off-day or minor injury before/during the US olympic trials wouldn't keep him from the Olympics
I had heard Team USA wouldn't make his dad an official team coach, so Team Duplantis said ok no problem we'll go to a country that respects us
Team USA fumbled the bag on this one hard, whatever the actual reasons are
You got it twisted. Mondo fumbled the bag. He could have been part of the winning team dominating the medal count and relishing team camaraderie. Now he’s on the losing team that gets crushed every international competition. It’s like going from the Alabama football team to Rutgers. Bad move.
