Sam Parsons to represent Germany

Actually you can claim the country. My grand father's gran father came from Germany and I claimed the nationality last year (I'm from a Latin American country)

In every mention of Parsons moving forward, LRC needs to label Parsons as American born so that German readers know he is not a German born athlete. This needs to happen for consistency.

ayyyyyyy wrote:

In every mention of Parsons moving forward, LRC needs to label Parsons as American born so that German readers know he is not a German born athlete. This needs to happen for consistency.

That depends on whether he was born a German citizen b/c his mother is German. If so, then he is born German and born American.

Legal Fine Points wrote:

That depends on whether he was born a German citizen b/c his mother is German. If so, then he is born German and born American.

Ooops!

According to his blog post, " I was born with dual citizenship."

So I guess this means he is different from Pappas, who was not a natural born Greek.

Does anyone remember whether Torrence was born a dual-citizen?

He was born with US citizenship which is how he has been able to run Clubs XC and score on the Tinman Elite team and take the prize money just a month ago.

rojo wrote:

Pappas grandmother was from Greece. Parsons mother is from Germany.

They aren't really any more competitive. I mean maybe a little but they don't have 3 people with the standard so it's all about hitting the standard.

It was her grandmother who is Greek, but she has no real connection to Greece? That's a confirmed mercenary.

I recently found out I'm 49.9% Scandinavian, and I'm 26.6 times more Jewish than Elizabeth Warren is Native American. My birth certificate says I'm 100% Murican. I'll stick with that.

There was a podcast with Tinman (the one that started a big long thread here:http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9166073) where he said they would have a number of athletes getting citizenship to represent other countries. Are there others in the works?

No, you're pretty far off the spot on this one. It's not misogyny at play here with Pappas versus Parsons. It is the fact that Pappas is a narcissistic sociopath that only cares about and focuses on herself.

How is his integration in German society going? Is he already speaking Arab? Is he participating in good old German traditions like raping women on New Year's Eve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany

There shouldn't be national teams anymore. Have athletes qualify for the Olympics and Worlds based on a time qualifier.

hypocrisy anybody? wrote:

It is just ridiculous that the message board is justifying this switch and killing Pappas for exact same thing.

He switched because he would have a significantly easier route to global championships and possible funding through the German Federation or a shoe company can now look at him and say he has a better chance to be an "Olympian". The US route would mean running the standard as well as placing top 3 at USA Championships which is about 10 times deeper. For those getting ready to proclaim Tinman's development of it's athletes, lets agree that an off year USA Championships 10k and a US Marathon Championships is missing quite a few of the big dogs.

The US is very high quality and deep with several very professionalized groups developing athletes. It isn't easy.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with switching; most others would also.

Exactly! If most of us are completely honest, then we would admit that we do the same thing if it might give us an opportunity to compete in the Olympics.

Given that so much of a sport's existence is about attracting money and viewership, competing as nations rather than individuals is far from antiquated. For most sports fans competing as nations is why the Olympics and Worlds are worth watching. Have 90% of the field in the 100 and 200 made up of Jamaicans and Americans, or 90% of the marathon field made up of East Africans and you'll never get anywhere near the number of world wide viewers that you do with the current set up.

Blacked wrote:

He was born with US citizenship which is how he has been able to run Clubs XC and score on the Tinman Elite team and take the prize money just a month ago.

Right. But he was also born with German citizenship. That's why it's called "dual" citizenship.

Reading comprehension's great. You should try it.

Well of course. He was born and raised in America, he never had a German passport before. Basic understanding of facts gained via effective reading comprehension will help you, try it out kiddo.

No chance Olympian wrote:

hypocrisy anybody? wrote:

I don't believe there is anything wrong with switching; most others would also.

Exactly! If most of us are completely honest, then we would admit that we do the same thing if it might give us an opportunity to compete in the Olympics.

I'm not a fan of the nationalism that pervades the Olympics. Nevertheless, I am extremely confident that I would not "do the same thing" -- effectively subordinating without renouncing my U.S. citizenship -- for something so trivial as "an opportunity to compete in the Olympics." (And having spent a good part of my childhood actually living in Greece, I think I have a much more substantial connection to that country than someone whose grandparent happened to have grown up there.) Moreover, in the spirit of being "completely honest," I would almost certainly think less of someone who would make such a choice.

malmo wrote:

I'm 26.6 times more Jewish than Elizabeth Warren is Native American. My birth certificate says I'm 100% Murican. I'll stick with that.

But malmo, you would have been a lock for a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games!

Avocado's Number wrote:

malmo wrote:

I'm 26.6 times more Jewish than Elizabeth Warren is Native American. My birth certificate says I'm 100% Murican. I'll stick with that.

But malmo, you would have been a lock for a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games!

Thought of that. Don't even need dual citizenship on that one.

Adam Sandler is going to have to update the Chanukah Song:

We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby,

George Malley is 1/38th Jewish -- not too shabby!

Nope, it's archaic. Time to learn that correlation doesn't equal causation. As well as that it's impossible to prove a negative. Keen observers such as you know that the sport clings to a model that saw it slip from a top 5 position among all sports in the USA and routine magazine covers a couple generations ago to a footnote in the sporting public's consciousness today. Those sports at the top now, which earn far more and are far more lucrative for participating athletes, have shed status quo and innovated at the right time. They opened doors to showcase the best talent and skill on Earth regardless of background and have thrived as a result. I'd stack viewership for any other WMM against the viewership for OG marathons now. The Olympics for T&F could be what it is for basketball or tennis or cycling - a significant event on the calendar but not the biggest championship by far occurring only quadrennially - instead of the only truly major event the general sports fans know or care about. Plenty of people probably like things exactly as they are, with plenty of top ranked athletes living in poverty.

HRE wrote:

Given that so much of a sport's existence is about attracting money and viewership, competing as nations rather than individuals is far from antiquated. For most sports fans competing as nations is why the Olympics and Worlds are worth watching. Have 90% of the field in the 100 and 200 made up of Jamaicans and Americans, or 90% of the marathon field made up of East Africans and you'll never get anywhere near the number of world wide viewers that you do with the current set up.

malmo wrote:

Avocado's Number wrote:

But malmo, you would have been a lock for a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games!

Thought of that. Don't even need dual citizenship on that one.

Adam Sandler is going to have to update the Chanukah Song:

We got Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby,

George Malley is 1/38th Jewish -- not too shabby!

:)