Should Lagat get US Records for Last Year?

As a naturalized American citizen who has lived in the US for almost my whole life, I think it's shameful that some people think that Lagat should not be eligible for American records. His CHOSING to become a citizen should be a honor to the US.

However, I agree that he can't have it both ways- he also chose to run for Kenya at the Olympics, and he should either have his medal stripped or else his times during that period should not be considered American records.

adfkaldfal wrote:

Sanchez has dual citizenship, as wejo noted.

Therefore he is a United States citizen. So if we recognize Lagat's records, Sanchez should be make our all-time lists.

But he doesn't because he represents another country. It's plain and simple.

wejo, you're 100% correct.

so what would it take for Felix Sanchez to be eligible for American records/lists in your mind?

or is it impossible - i.e. you choose once and you live with that for your entire career?

kaitainen wrote:

In short, who qualifies to break a national record in your book? Must the individual be native-born? A certain requirement of years lived in the country? Parents who have a connection to the country? Grandparents? A requirement that you never compete for, or try to compete for, another country's national team? A requirement that you have never competed in any running event in another country prior to becoming a citizen in the new country?

Basically I don't care if a person is raised in the US and becomes a citizen of the US and breaks records. And I know there are many Kenyan natives running in the US however, they are not breaking AMERICAN records because they still have citizenship in their native countries. Therefore, I think that a person who has gained citizenship before taking elite flight in running should be able to obtain these records. Not someone who has ran for Kenya for pretty much his whole life (running life...) and then all of the sudden decides to gain citizenship and start breaking records. Not that his sole purpose is to break all the US records, but still. I mean, just look at it this way...Lagat has probably be running for what...15-16 years or so? So let's say he's 31 or 32 years of age (which I believe he is)that would mean out of those years he has been running 15-16 years. Now all of the sudden he decides to get run for the US. Let's say he runs for another 15-16 at an elite level (highly, highly doubtful) that would make him what, 43-44 years of age. My point is, I don't think it's fair to come and run for the US at a lesser expected running term than that of which you have competed for another country. Meaning, Lagat has been able to train and run for about 15yrs. in Kenya, yet a competetive/elite runner's (running) expectancy is not 43-44 years of age. This just doesn't seem fair.

Huh?

How complicated do you want to make this?

What are the pertinent USATF rules? I can't find them on the USATF website. (The application form does not require doping control for US records, by the way.) Whatever their rules are shouldn't be changed one way or another.

Track & Field News puts someone on their US lists from the date they become a citizen (which will require some correction to their lists in this case). No word on what they do with dual citizens, although by Kenyan law Lagat lost his Kenyan citizenship as soon as he became a US citizen. So in Athens he was in a Kenyan uniform but not a Kenyan, and could lose his silver medal for it.

If the requirement is to be a US citizen then Lagat's US records should be recognized by USATF. The US is a nation of laws/rules; the rules state US citizen, then abide by the rules. If the rules need changing, then change the rules but one should not retroactively punish someone.

What happens as far as his Olympic medal goes is up to the IOC and is a different issue. Does the IOC charter address this? How much is KAA at fault for not knowing this? How could they know? It appears Lagat did a good job keeping it under wraps.

Sanchez is an interesting case since he has dual citizenship (as do many athletes it seems). In cases where an athlete has dual citizenship, perhaps a standard should be set where it an athlete chooses his country to compete for in terms of making an Olympic team or worlds team, etc. However, Lagat does not have dual citizenship as that is not allowed by Kenya.

As for "rights", this has nothing to do with rights. It involves the rules of a private organization. Lagat is not going to be imprisoned. He has not broken any US law that I can tell. Kenya might have a bone to pick from a legal standpoint, but that is between Lagat and Kenya.

People seem to want to make the idea of a record more complicated. You can be a citisen but need to have been one for more than X years before being eligible for a US record (I hate the term "American record" for reasons noted by others concerning the term "America"). It could get complicated. Imagine this:

One is eligible for US records if:

1) The person is a US citizen at the time of record, and

2) the person has been a citizen for 3 years unless

a) the person came to the US before the age of 15

b) the person never really trained in her/his previous country

i) if the person trained in his country then they must have trained less that 4 hours per week

3) rule 2 can be waived if the numbnuts on Letsrun agree to a waiver.

jsquire wrote:

What are the pertinent USATF rules? I can't find them on the USATF website. (The application form does not require doping control for US records, by the way.) Whatever their rules are shouldn't be changed one way or another.

i agree that the rules should be followed (of course). my question is open-ended and is about what people think the rules "should" be in their opinion.

as for me, i tend to agree with the sentiment that one should spend the large majority of his/her running career with the same country. however, i am not sure at all how this would work in practice. so in practice i support a rule saying that as soon as you become a citizen of country X you lose your citizenship in country Y. a bright line rule seems to work best here (and i don't support a bright line rule saying that you must be born in a country or have parents who were citizens of that country at the time of your birth).

the other possibilities that i can think of for a bright line rule include: citizenship at age 18, citizenship at the time that you become an "elite" runner (this line wouldn't exactly be cut and dry - just throwing out ideas), citizenship at age 15, or some other age that we pick to indicate pre-elite running years.

given the potential complexities, i think the day you become a citizen of the new country you should be eligible for national records. citizenship is generally not easy to obtain, so we shouldn't see absurd results (e.g. an athlete holding national records in 10 countries).

The IAAF / IOC always let national federations make the call. From a statistician's point of view (where we get to make the decisions instead of NGBs), I'd simply make national marks line up with the nation an athlete was able to represent at the time. In this case, that means Lagat was a Kenyan last year unless/until it's decided that he loses his medal for not being a Kenyan.

it is my understanding to become a naturalized US citizen (i.e. you were born in another country but married a US person, and so forth) that you have to give up your citizenship in the other country? in other words, the only way to get dual citizenship is through birth, not naturalization.

has anyone else heard this before?

ins wrote:

it is my understanding to become a naturalized US citizen (i.e. you were born in another country but married a US person, and so forth) that you have to give up your citizenship in the other country? in other words, the only way to get dual citizenship is through birth, not naturalization.

has anyone else heard this before?

that's my understanding as well. i'm pretty sure that there is a provision in u.s. law that says that you lose american citizenship if you pledge loyalty to another country (i.e. you become a citizen of another country). not sure how enforced these provisions are (assuming they exist).

Speed Kills wrote:

As soon as he runs a 1500 to his ability (assuming he beats Webb) he's going to have the AR.

Nice. "Assuming he beats Webb."

Pretty safe assumption, guys!

He's a druggie. Deport him to Canada.

Are we all forgetting the many US citizens who competed for Greece in Athens? Practically, the entire baseball team was from the USA.

Dual citizenship is a very fuzzy issue. As long as you have passports from both you can pretty much choose who you want to represent. All you need to do is tell your federation which one since you can only represent one country at a time. Records however are entirely different. It's up to each federation. They all have their own rules. Usually you would need to be a citizen but that's about all that is common. For instance, if you aren't a member of the national federation (like USATF) - maybe they wouldn't recognize your record.

So Lagat as a citizen should probably have the US records. And Felix Sanchez could have the record if he broke it.

WHAT

DO

YOU

EXPECT?

ITS

TYPICAL

WEJO

i.e.

SELF

CENTERED

CHIDISH

TANTRUMS

I may be able to offer some perspective on the dual citizen thing as my cousin is going through this process right now (American living in Paris, wife native to Paris, and they have a newborn with dual citizenship):

It totally depends on whatever individual treaties the two countries have with eachother. For example: a native of Australia can apply and gain US citizenship without renouncing Australian citizenship. While with the US and France, because of their individual treaties, a French citizen cannot gain American citizenship w/o renouncing their French passport and the reverse is true. The only way someone can have dual French/USA citizenship is a) they have parents of both nationalities b) their parents are French but the child is born in the USA c) the parents are USA citizens and the child is born in France.

So, the whole issue of dual citizenship depends entirely on the two parties involved. In this case, Kenya makes it a bit of a moot point as it does not recognize dual citizenship in any form.

If Lagat, or anyone else, becomes an American citizen then he should be eligible for American records. Who has a problem with that?

But what happened was that Lagat refused to tell anyone that he was a citizen, and LIED to the Kenyan federation so that he could go to the Olympics. That, by anyone's definition, is fraud. For that, Lagat should be stripped of his medal and banned from competition for 2 years.

Lagat had every opportunity to announce his citizenship, which for 99.9% of all immigrants is one of the most exciting moments in their lives. He did not. He kept his US citizenship a secret, then announced (LIED TO US ALL) that he became a citizen only this year.

Since Lagat wouldn't tell anyone he was a citizen last year, I believe that only fair thing to do would be to acknowledge ARs after the bogus date that HE HIMSELF declared, March 29, 2005.

Strip the siver medal from him. For AR records purposes, use the self imposed vesting date of March 29.

Makes you wonder, who else knew about Lagat's fraud? Nike?

There are multiple uses of lots of terms like the difference between being "European" as in living on the continent and "European" as in living under the European Union (EU). If your country isn't a member of the EU, then you are a European only in the broad geographic sense.

You know it isn't that simple.

Those are great systems, in that they make citizenship very difficult to acheive, so it is regarded highly. We aren't a big empty continent anymore and we don't need people who have no regard for our Founders and laws.

This is just more liberal dishonest polemics, playing loose with the difference between geographic regions and national sovereignties. The USA was the first independent country in the Americas, and thus the only one historically who has ever been known as "Americans." Most of the world uses the term American the same as we do, and always has. Do you really think all those foreign protests, newspaper articles, media broadcasts, and politicans are referring to all of North and South America when they talk about Americans in Iraq, etc.?

Don't compare Hamilton and Paine to the Governator. Hamilton and Paine were subjects of the British Empire, like all proto Americans, who automatically became full citizens, as provided for in article two of the Constitution, upon enactment of the Constitution because they immigrated to the colonies prior the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, and Revolution (all of which they had a hand in).

It isn't, over 80% of the country wants to close the borders and restrict immigration, so restrictions on citizenship could easily be toughened instead. You are a good example of why the citizenship standards should, if anything, be toughened; with your demeaning of the Founders in other threads in order to prop up people like proven liar and possible druggie like Lagat.

I will compare Paine and Hamilton to the Governator. Paine was born in Thetford, England and first came to N. America in 1774 at the age of 37. Almost immediately he became an active voice, both for independence from Britain and for the abolishion of slavery.

Hamilton was born on Nevis (as in SKN, home of reigning world 100m champ Kim Collins= running connection) and in 1772 moved to Elizabethtown, NJ to study and later went to school at what is now Columbia Univ.

Henry A. Kissinger was born in Fürth, Germany and moved to the US at the age of 15 in 1938. He held an instrumental role in American politics and the fact that he was born outside our borders doesn't change his "American-ness" at all -- if anything, his is a more colorful background than those that are not composites of multiple cultures.

Madeline Albright, the first female Secretary of State in US history was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937, moved to Britain in 1939 and later to the US in 1949.

Schwarzenegger arrived in the US in 1968 at the age of 21. He became a citizen of the US in 1983. He's certainly made his mark, like him or not.

It matters little where you were first came to life and much mroe what you want to do with that life.

Wow, this messes things up on so many levels.

I thought there were 2 catgories for American records.

1) fastest time for a US citizen

2) fastest time for a native born American

Now there is: fastest time for a US citizen recorded at time of announcement retroactively effective one year prior when citizenship was formally (but secretively) granted in Olympic Year in which said athlete competed for his native country after becoming a US citizen.

I think all National Records should be thrown out.

I also think that the Olympics should just allow the best runners to compete without having a national affiliation.

So Lagat keeps his Silver but gets no National Record. He should be happy being the second fastest human ever at 1500m.