Aregawi is not the least bit Swedish.

Your ignorance is also absurd. The Swedes have a much different society than we do. Their queen is German born, and her mother was Brazilian. Are they therefore not Swedes?

Thank you for reviving this topic rojo.

Imagine this from the American perspective. Imagine if Galen Rupp discovered he could get a Cambodian passport, and decided to run for Cambodia from now on so he could bypass the Olympic Trials. I doubt American fans would like that.

Or imagine the other way around, if Aregawi's Ethiopian ex-husband had US dual citizenship and she discovered she could get US citizenship as well. Without speaking a word of English, she would only fly to the US for the trials so she could vacuum up an Olympic spot. I guarantee we would be upset.

Mercenary Alert wrote:

Even Steve Cram pointed this out in the announcing today, that her move is very controversial since she doesn't have any Swedish association.

At the finish, he said "it's an Ethiopian 1-2 finish."

BBC = Trash

As for Aregawi, she married a Swede national as a teenager and lived in Stockholm for 4 years. She speaks fluent Svenska (Swedish). I doubt anyone would take the time to learn such a useless language for purposes of a scam.

ohmymy wrote:

this is why Track is DYING, soon it will just be Kenyans and Ethiopians running against Kenyans and Ethiopians Ringers for other countries.

Well, then maybe people from outside of Kenya and Ethiopia need to get off their lazy asses and run.

Yes the Olympics, and other international events, are organized around nation states. So the Hitlers and Putins of the world get their time basking in the reflected glory of their athletes. But shouldn't we really be interested in whether the best athletes get to compete or not? The British commentater at WIC was miffed by the fact that more that three (6?) of the finalists in the women's 3000 were Ethiopian by birth. Would he like see Mo Farah disqualified by reason of his place of birth? How about Bernard Lagat?

alanson wrote:

Would he like see Mo Farah disqualified by reason of his place of birth? How about Bernard Lagat?

Please stop, this slippery slope argument has been repeated 5 times in this thread.

This isn't about the fact that runners can be born in one country and compete for another, or that sometimes they may even do it for personal gain. This is about taking it too far. I don't know whose decision it was (Sweden or Aregawi) but in this case I believe it has been taken too far, because she has no intentional connection to Sweden. I am sure if she was taking up Olympic spots in the US without speaking a word of English or spending a week in the US you would feel the same way.

Great post OP. Being a country cheat is also a good indicator of being a drug cheat. Lifetime bans for all country cheats. Plus just bar "countries" such as Quatar etc from ever competing in any international sporting event. Grow a pair IAAF and IOC!

This reminds me of an old and bad pick-up line.

Using whatever ethnicity you are - in this case Swedish (which I am) - you ask the subject of desire, "So.... where is your family from? Do you have any Swedish in you?"

And when she says, "No," you reply with the follow-up question: "Do you want any? I could help you with that..."

Yep, back to middle school for me.

America has no moral leg to stand on this issue.One can easily claim that

Jesse Owens and other great black athletes were not really Americans

considering the way the white majority treated them after their Olympic triumphs.At least Sweden accepts and treats Aregawi with dignity,which is

more than we can say for America and the treatment of Owens,Metcalf,

Randolph,Duvall.

USA GOLD FOR WHINING wrote:

oh shut your trap. The USA has a long list of runners who have won gold in Word Championships and or Olympics and are from another country. Try Lagat on for size! Didn't he move to the US for personal gain? I don't care if he went to school here yada yada yada. He is 100 Kenyan. How about Meb K., Sanya Richards, Lopez Lamong(he hasn't won medals yet), Leo Manzano???? Please don't call the kettle black. Makes you look like a whiner.

don't listen to this dbag, OP. of course what you describe is unethical. it is not the same as lagat who has lived in the u.s. for decades. clearly, this is abusing the system.

rojo wrote:

USA GOLD FOR WHINING wrote:

oh shut your trap. The USA has a long list of runners who have won gold in Word Championships and or Olympics and are from another country. Try Lagat on for size! Didn't he move to the US for personal gain? I don't care if he went to school here yada yada yada. He is 100 Kenyan. How about Meb K., Sanya Richards, Lopez Lamong(he hasn't won medals yet), Leo Manzano???? Please don't call the kettle black. Makes you look like a whiner.

Your ignorance is absurd.

Do Lagat, Manzano, etc not all speak the predominant langauge in their new country?

Do they also not live in the country 100% of the time?

Aregawi does neither although she did live in Sweden for a while.

We could go on and on. Heck, it was Von Braun, a WWII Hitler-following Nazi, that brought America world prominance by running the Apollo program and developing the first ideas for the Space Shuttle. And the Germans Einstein and Oppenheimer who developed the Atomic Bomb.

BUSTED!!!

I am delighted. She never passed the smell test. We in this thread knew she couldn't be trusted.

She is married for years with Yemane ( second in Boston en Beijing last year) and they have nice house just outside Addis Abeba, direction of Sandafa place called Legedafo! She paid around 12/15 thousand to an Ethiopian immigrant who lives in Sweden and to tell the authorities that he left his wife behind in Ethiopia and that he want a falimlie reunion!! , there was even no reason to change nationality from Ethio to Swedish, she is a Tigre like Gebremeskel, Gebrewit..they always can find some one who they know or is a family member and is in the government who can fix things ( Tigre people rule Ethiopia, most athletes are from Oromo tribe) but she is not an easy lady!!

Say what now?

Your English reminds me of myself except that I was trolling and you could possibly be for real.

wtf is wrong with you? why would you make fun of someone's English here? try going to an Ethiopian website, and posting in their language, you tool.

Pet the kitty, pet the kitty.

This internet thing may not be for you.