Running riot with transfer procedure
This is the same Fionnuala McCormack who, trust us, wears the most haunted of looks at press conference and launches and whose words are so soft as to leave less of an imprint on a dictaphone than her shoes do on a track.
To say that her outburst in Amsterdam was out of character would be as understated as she normally is herself.
McCormack couldn’t contain her ire after her fourth place finish in the European Championships 10,000m final which was won in a time of 31 minutes and 12 seconds by 19-year-old Yasemin Can of Turkey.
Or, as she used to be known, Vivian Jemutai who was born and bred in, and raced for, Kenya.
Can is no oddity.
She is actually just one of seven Kenyans and, in total, 14 athletes from seven other countries as disparate as Jamaica, South Africa, Azerbaijan and Ukraine who are representing Turkey in the Netherlands this week.
As Spock might have said: It’s international sport, Jim, but not as we know it.
“It’s a joke,” said McCormack. “People shouldn’t be allowed to hop countries just because they feel like it. They’re taking such a soft approach. Once you’ve represented one country past a certain age that should be your country for life.
I don’t just want to go on like I’m bitter for coming fourth, because I’m not, but there’s a reason it’s called the European Championships.”
We’ve been here before, haven’t we?
What exactly decides someone’s nationality is increasingly complex though there is a tacit understanding in the broader sense that there should be a tangible thread for someone to claim a connection with a country beyond mere financial, career gains.
Whether that is lineage or time spent in a jurisdiction — and how strong/long they should be — is another thing.
How easy is it to switch in athletics? A piece of cake, really.
The IAAF’s own ruling goes on about a three-year period of waiting for those who acquire new citizenship but the key passage states how it may be reduced to 12 months “with the agreement of the Members concerned”.
Now, call us cynical, but that right there looks like a fertile breeding ground for some fairly questionable dealing.
Is it any surprise that athletes from African countries that may be awash with, say, long-distance runners should accept an attractive financial package to declare for a gulf state and guarantee entry to major events?
Of course, the international movement of people is a growing trend in a world where communications and greater ease of travel have blurred many of the national boundary lines on the world map.
The International Amateur Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) own database on what they term to be ‘transfers of allegiance’ makes that much clear.
In the 14 years between 1998 and 2011, the IAAF approved 324 of these transfers which involved a myriad of countries and an infinite number of reasons. The number in the last five years amounts to almost as many, 313, with 82 alone being sanctioned last year.
And it isn’t all about African athletes jumping ship to the likes of Turkey, Qatar or Bahrain.
Wikipedia isn’t exactly the most dependable of sources on which to base an argument but the list of transfers on the website, even if not fully accurate, paints a vivid picture with 300, or three-fifths, of the track and field swaps featured being made up of athletes opting to compete instead under the auspices of a European nation.
The greatest recipient is not Turkey but France with 40 athletes severing ties with countries as diverse as Morocco and Germany, Madagascar and Hungary to seek honour under the Tricolour.
And Ireland? Let’s just say we haven’t been left floundering in the starting blocks when it comes to bolstering the domestic talent base with others from abroad.
Twenty-eight athletes have nailed shiny new green colours to the Irish mast in the last 19 years, from the USA’s Jeff Cassin and Great Britain’s Dermot Donnelly in 1998 to Moldova’s Sergiu Ciobanu and the British pair of Elaine O’Neill and Katie Kirk. Is it likely that some felt little or no affinity with the Emerald Isle?
Of course it is.
Ultimately, it is difficult to argue with Wilson Kipketer’s take on all this.
The former 800m world record holder, Kipketer travelled to Denmark from his native Kenya in 1990 as a foreign exchange engineering student and liked it so much that he stayed on and went through the seven-year process to become a citizen.
Famously, the IOC barred him from the 1996 Olympic Games due to the fact that he still had no Danish passport at the time.
“I don’t know if these athletes from Bahrain and Qatar come over from [places like] Kenya and Ethiopia and live in and really contribute to the community and that country, as I did when I came to Denmark,” Kipketer told insidethegames.
“These things have to be looked at in a different way.
“I am not saying it is the wrong thing, but what is worrying me, is if you look at Youth or Junior Championships or the Youth Olympics and you see somebody who is 16 or 17 running for another country… The question I have is do the parents of these kids live in that country?”
Kipketer was speaking two years ago, in the wake of an Asian Games in which 14 of the 22 individual running events were won by athletes of African origin and competing for one of Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates.
So, McCormack isn’t the first to question the validity of their continental championships.
And she won’t be the last.
