WA refuses to allow transfer of allegiance to Turkey for Brigid Kosgei, Ronald Kwemoi, Wayne Pinnock, Roje Stona and many others

I have no problem with an athlete moving to a new country and applying for citizenship. It happens all the time for many people. However, the act of buying athletes to represent your country is disgusting. Look how some countries like Bahrain who has no athletic traditions at all being represented by runners who have no cultural connection to the country and do not and never have lived there. Mercenaries is the word for it.
And now Turkey is trying to jump into the Let's buy us some elite African runners game.
Good for the WA!!

Good for WA for denying this. Certainly, if we are going to continue to hold Olympic Games where it is based on country allegiance (and I don’t expect it to stop anytime soon, tribalism is very much engrained in the human experience, then allowing changes in nationality like this have a profound effect. I get tired of how many times announcers need to tell us, “well, it’s down to the athlete from Baharain and Kenya for the win, but the Baharaining athlete is by way of Kenya…” tiresome.

i get that for us it’s a sport and for them it’s a job, but there is also no big money in sport for them to chase without fans and ver, very compliant race directors (which is the next thing that needs addressing), so WA actually paying attention the mercenary aspect of changing countries, and the Middle Eastern sports washing is refreshing.

Finally a step in the right direction! Let’s not stop with Turkiye - many other nations are guilty of this, as are the athletes looking to game the system!

Switching the country you represent should require you to live there for a chunk of time recently. Living in one place and continuing life as usual but switching to some random country you don't live in (which is this scenario) shouldn't be allowed, so good job WA

How is Turkey a member of NATO?

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Get NATO back to its true alliances or get out entirely.

Turkey is the dopest country!

The Turks do this in every single sport. Imagine having 85 million people and being too lazy to find home grown talents.

Feel the most sympathy for Ofili. She's been screwed over multiple times by the incompetence of the Nigerian federation. Not sure she has a chance at US citizenship, but she might be short on options.
Rest seem to be purely payday/opportunity-induced though Campbell complained the Jamaican federation left money on the table with their last Puma deal. Some are Kenyans where nationality would only matter for the Olympics realistically.

Good! WA finally doing the right thing. You lot have expressed it far more elegantly than I because, as far as I'm concerned, what Turkey and a few other countries like Bahrain, Qatar and Kazakhstan, are doing reeks of a modern day slave market or plantation system and are deserving of much more contempt than they're getting.

I could say something worse relating to culture, but I won't.

For what it’s worth, Winfred left because of the corruption in Athletics Kenya. If I recall correctly she finished like second in the steeple and they didn’t put her on the team.

Playing devils advocate for a second, do you think Israel ever had problems when they bought athletes to compete for them? Maybe Turkey 🇹🇷 hasn’t been supportive enough of Israel’s bombings?

No. She left because of stiff competition and being offered a huge bag of cash. And even so, she continues to live in Kenya whilst not speaking a single word of Arabic. This is a mockery of the national system that risks turning the Olympics and Worlds into a Diamond League meet.

I am so glad that World Athletics has taken a stand on the worst example of this abuse. More enforcement is needed on other instances.

The denial by WA is absolutely ridiculous. No organization should have the authority to stop anyone from accepting a job and making a living.

Are you implying Islam doesn’t have a place in NATO? Or is that rooted in other broad-brush negative cultural stereotypes of the people? Just trying to better understand the implied xenophobia.

The difference with Israel and current World Athletics criteria compared to Turkey is almost any Jewish athlete can easily make claims that they have ties to Israel, something that was ostensibly missing from the 11 athletes trying to transfer to Turkey.

If you are side eyeing Ethiopians competing for Israel, Ethiopians who claim to be of Jewish ancestry have been migrating to Israel for decades. I have no idea if every Israeli athlete of Ethiopian descent genuinely has this ancestry, but it at least gives their federation cover to argue the athletes have ties to the country, unlike the situation with Turkey.

So as a Brit I can run for America on the basis that lots of other Brits have moved to the US?

good.

El Keniano is incorrect.

1. Yavi earned a spot but was denied by AK due to her age.

2. She is learning Arabic and in class.

3. She is a member of the Bahranian military. They same way Hillary Bor, Ednah Kurgat, Zouhair Talbi, Leonard Korir, Sam Chelanga, Elkinah Kibet and several others are with the U.S.

You really think she would even consider leaving Kenya, her house and land/farm to permanently settle in Bahrain? Does this sound like a person who intends to physically move and retire in Bahrain?