IOC Rules
Changing passports and competing for another country is not new in the realm of international sport. But in recent years, we are seeing an uptick as many athletes investigate trading in their original passport for an opportunity to compete on the international level for a different country. They may have a better chance of competing at the international level if they switch allegiances.
In the past, the Olympics brought together countries around the world to compete as united teams against other nations. However, since 1992, there has been an increase in athletes changing their passports to compete for countries other than the one where they were born or lived. In many cases, they made the change because the depth of the talent pool in the selected country wasn’t as deep as it was in their country of origin, so switching allegiances allowed for a better opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.
During the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the majority of runners on the track and field team for Bahrain Olympic were not from Bahrain; the team was made up of athletes from Ethiopia, Kenya, Jamaica, Morocco, and Nigeria. To date, every medal won in track and field by Bahrain has been by individuals born in Africa and not Bahrain. The athletes competing for Qatar are another example of switching nationality. Out of the 39 athletes that Qatar sent to the Olympics in 2016, at least 17 were from another country. In fact, the majority of the players on Qatar’s handball team were from another country (Janse, Oonk, and Engbersen 2018).
Essentially, countries can grant citizenship to whomever they want to, even if that person does not know the language or has never even been to their country. It is up to the country to decide how citizenship is granted. Individual countries have their own laws and governance concerning citizenship. Citizenship is granted for various reasons including birth in the territory or to a citizen, marriage to a citizen, individual talent, or satisfaction of the basic residency requirements for naturalization. The majority of Olympic nationality switches occur because an athlete met the residency requirements of a certain country and then changed citizenship.
Rule 41 of the Olympic Charter allows athletes to represent one nation in international competition as long as three years have passed since the competitor represented her former country (Wiggins 2018). Therefore, an athlete can compete for her new country once three years have lapsed since competing for her previous country.
1 – Do you think the IOC should create stricter rules for changing citizenship to compete? For instance, should athletes know the language, have visited the country, have lived in the country for a certain amount of time? Discuss your reasoning (5 points).
2 – What are the positives and negatives of switching allegiances? Research and give one positive and one negative (10 points).
