Aregawi is not the least bit Swedish.

Mercenary Alert wrote:

she is representing them and stealing their national records.

And championship qualifying spots I should add. If a real Swedish woman hits the B-standard in the 1500 and is the only one, she can't go because Abeba Aregawi already took the spot.

Why are you picking on Sweden?

What about the Kenyans who are paid to run for Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai, like Ahmad Hassan Abdullah (Albert Chepkurui) and Saif Saeed Shaheen (Stephen Cherono) did?

Randy Oldman wrote:

What about the Kenyans who are paid to run for Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai, like Ahmad Hassan Abdullah (Albert Chepkurui) and Saif Saeed Shaheen (Stephen Cherono) did?

Good question, there are reasons I am choosing to talk about Aregawi and Sweden.

Saif Shaheen actually moved to Qatar (and converted to Islam), for one. Don't know if all the Kenyans moved there, but either way, Qatar has shown no interest in actually fielding a team of Qatarians, if they even have any. Buying athletes is what they do.

Sweden has a rich history of athletics and does not go out of their way to buy athletes. Aregawi took advantage of the system. I don't know if they have any good female 1500m athletes, but I hope one of them runs the B-standard and they decide to give her a spot over Aregawi.

It is slightly annoying what the Qatarians do as well, but I'm not sure it's the same case, and even if it is, that doesn't mean Aregawi is off the hook. I am still singling her out because she is the topic of the day.

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.

Even if it's so, why pick on her? There are countries (e.g. Qatar) where the whole sporting program is based on buying foreigners to represent them.

As long as people can transfer nationality within the rules why should they not chose to do so? The US has plenty of foreign imports. Conversely there are Americans who chose to compete for other countries.

Sweden should make her change her name to Ikea and make her dye her hair blonde. Then I'll be on board.

Even though she'll probably still continue to dope.

Mercenary Alert wrote:

Saif Shaheen actually moved to Qatar (and converted to Islam), for one.

Where did he train?

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.

All those people had connections to the USA. Aregawi has zero connections to Sweden.

Randy Oldman wrote:

Mercenary Alert wrote:

Saif Shaheen actually moved to Qatar (and converted to Islam), for one.

Where did he train?

Does it matter? If he spent a single day in Qatar it was more than Aregawi spends in Sweden. And the Qatari athletes did spend some time working in Doha.

This isn't about whether the Qatar situation is right. I'm not saying it is. I also am aware that African-born runners can run for other countries. But Aregawi is a case of taking it WAY too far.

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."

You don't want to believe everything you read in Expressen and Dagens Nyheter. There's a reason why they give away those rags for free at fast food outlets. Anyway, Aregawi has been living in Sweden for 7 years. She owns property in Sweden. She also speaks Swedish, which you only need if you live in Sweden. She competes in all the major Swedish meets. About 3 years ago, after repeated injuries resulting from the compulsary indoor running, she decided to spend the Swedish winters in Ethiopia where she could continue to train outdoors. Leading up to the World Champs she stayed on in order to train with athletes of the right level. Just like Mo Farah and co are doing. She is frequently giving interviews in Swedish tv studios, speaking Swedish, and is often featured in Swedish magazines. Being married to a Swedish citizen isn't a requirement for Swedish citizenship, so the state of her marriage at the time she applied for citizenship is irrelevant. The requirement is the amount of time spent actually living in Sweden, and she has fulfilled that requirement. The Swedish population register shows who is in the country and when. You can't cheat the system, especially when coming from outside of the EU.

We are all citizens of the world.

Love and peace x

Steve Cram, wasn't he recently the commentating expert for Curling at the Winter Olympics ? Before moving on to his current role as Immigration Consultant.

Mercenary Alert wrote:

Even Steve Cram pointed this out in the announcing today,

i like the way he sighs when introducing the morroccans

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.

The point is Aregawi didn't even move to Sweden or shows any pride in being Swedish. Lagat did and does.

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.

The point is Aregawi didn't even move to Sweden or shows any pride in representing Sweden or any connection to Sweden besides a dodgy marriage of convenience. Lagat and the other examples do show some cause or connection to their country. Which is kinda the point of representing a country and fans cheering on the athletes who ear their countries vest. Otherwise we would just have professional teams.

Mercenary Alert wrote:

She was married to an Ethiopian-Swedish dude for three years, got citizenship, and divorced. She remarried an Ethiopian but decided to switch her allegiance to Sweden purely for running purposes. She does not spend any time in Sweden or have any association with Sweden.

What a disgrace. What a blatant abuse of nationalities for personal gain. Sweden should be ashamed she is representing them and stealing their national records. Their federation should ban her from competing and tell her to switch back.

She lived in Stockholm for 4 years before she moved back to Ethiopia.

She DID move to Sweden, idiot. That is one of the requirements for getting a Swedeish citizenship.

USA GOLD FOR WHINING wrote:

Please don't call the kettle black. Makes you look like a whiner.

Why the kettle gotta be black?! Why can't it be white some of the time?