ignorant turd wrote:
You do realize that PR is part of the USA, right? Citizens of PR are citizens of the USA.
Why PR has an Olympic team, I don't know. But they do, so he is not being a traitor by representing them.
If you are a long time Letsrun reader/poster, you know I generally don't get into the citizenship debate, in fact most of the time I side with whatever the athlete decides. There are a lot of valid reasons to compete for another country; however, when you are a U.S. citizen and compete for a country that has had no input in your development...how can that possibly make sense? When one country brought you into the sport, trained, equipped, financed and provided you with the opportunity display your talent and then another country benefits from that is dishonorable in every way I can think of. - Andres Arroyo's decision to represent PR as opposed to the U.S. will always be part of the discussion no matter what he accomplish and it is a fair discussion.
With all of that said, he is a talented kid and I wish him the best of luck.
And, for anyone to think this young man should not be called out on this is stinking thinking. Bernard Lagat came to the U.S. when he was 18, went to college in the U.S., married an American woman, became a citizen, he is raising his kids in the U.S., has lived in the U.S. longer than he has lived in Kenya, gave Kenya the best years of his career and actually competed for Kenya while technically being a U.S. citizen and he still get flack for not representing Kenya.