Bahraini east Africans, why no controversy?

All of the Bahrani runners are from Africa. This has been going on for decades. They pay good runners to take up Bahrani citizenship. Unless you are super patriotic, why not.

David Torrence is running for Peru. What's the problem?

So people should not be able to seek a better life?

I assume your line about morality and purity in Olympics is sarcasm. or naivety?

The rules allow for such transfers and they should.

Rashid Ramzi, of course, was a Moroccan running for Bahrain

Alexi Pappad for Greece. No problem with that either.

Sandy Richards, Kerron Clement, Hassan Mead, Bernard Lagat, and about a gazillion other other immigrants are running for the US. What's the problem?

Some people also find it a problem that Lagat and others run for the US.

Sanya has been in the US since she was a school girl.

You must have been living in a cave.

The BBC commentary constantly goes on about this fact in pretty much every event containing Bahrain, Qatar or Turkey.

Seb Coe has also talked about it extensively and he wants to change the rules.

Bahrain buys it's athletes. Been going on for the last 10 years. They have two sprinters in the 100 semi's from Jamaica. And, they are paid very well.

That's completely different. Bahrain buys athletes. Some Turkish athletes have never set foot in Turkey.

as far as i know the entire bahraini team is made up of kenyans,ethiopians jamaicans nigerians and moroccans.its been going on for a long time.and as for qatar,its likely their only real qatari athlete is the famale 400 meter runner.both countries have been buying africans for a very long time,and none of them actually live in those countries..turkey and azerbaijan also buys athletes.

Qatar's got the great high jumper Barshim, his dad was an athlete and he actually grew up there, if I remember the backstory correctly. It is true most of Qatar and Bahrain's athletes aren't from there, but this is noted by the British announcers often (see: today's marathon coverage)

good job bro and good remark

bahrain know how to invest in sport ,why the bahrain ironman r offering 1 million dollar to the winner of (traithlon chalenge winner )swiss lady picked up the purse last year ,the country is collecting the eggs(lot middle east )people start to get hooked to the sport ,today the country collected a silver medal ,talking money i believe the bronze medalist today at the marathon is making less money than the first american (7th overal)lady today ,because she is amrican but the bronze medalist is african ,lot injustice

byebyeshalane wrote:

Sandy Richards, Kerron Clement, Hassan Mead, Bernard Lagat, and about a gazillion other other immigrants are running for the US. What's the problem?

Some athletes run because Nike pays them. Some athletes run because they're from a wealthy country that pays elite competitors for Olympic visibility.

Some come from a country where running is controlled by Athletics Kenya, and where even Mary Keitany can't be sure of an Olympic start. Little surprise that some are happy to run for a wealthy government that is able to offer them a standard of living and international starts that they couldn't otherwise get.

Question (I don't know the answer): if an athlete gets injured or underperforms, which paymaster is more ruthless, Nike or Bahrain?

Your point about Mo being a different situation because he came over as a child is a good one.

I certainly understand why athletes would want to run for another country if they are paid well.

But I think the OP has a point if countries are paying to have fast athletes run for them and are given a quick paper citizenship to allow this to happen. I think some residency requires such as length of time as citizen of the country you are representing would be in keeping with the spirit of the Olympics.

Clement, Richards, Mead, immigrated to the US with their families when they were kids, very different then being adults who came over just to run.

Countries are, and have done, for years. This is not new. I am amazed people did not realise that all the kiprotich's etc. running for the middle east are not actually Arabs.

This is well known and has been talked about extensively.