At the Winter Olympics in Sochi this February, a German prince
will represent Mexico. A South Korea native will represent Russia. And a
Singapore-born, London-raised violinist will ski for Thailand.
Meet 2014′s Olympic carpetbaggers — the latest in a long line
of competitors who’ve sought glory under a foreign flag. Like other imported athletes
before them, they’ve established only tenuous ties to their ostensible
motherlands, and exist as awkward reminders that, even as the Games embrace the
rhetoric of national pride, opportunism knows no borders.
Though the Olympic Charter requires all athletes to be citizens of the country for
which they compete, the phenomenon of “passport swapping,” as it’s often
called, is surprisingly common. In 2012, the Telegraph reported that 61 members of Team Great Britain were born
overseas and that one of them — wrestler Olga Butkevych — had received her
U.K. passport only a few months before the games. The United States is
particularly prone to the practice, even offering a special
visa for aspiring Olympians (deemed “aliens of extraordinary abilities”).
Why engage in carpetbagging? For the athletes, it’s a chance
at, if not Olympic glory, at least the experience of lifetime. For the
countries that take them in, it’s shot at a medal that would otherwise be
hopeless. It’s a win-win — as long no one thinks too hard about what it means
to actually hail from somewhere. Over the years, athletes of all talent levels
and resources have devised creative ways of getting to the Games. Here are some
of our favorite, tried-and-tested carpetbagging strategies from Olympics past
and present:
1. Use your wealth (and
daddy’s passport) to play for a country where you have no competition.
Tired of chasing the Olympic dream equipped with just subpar
athletic ability and lacking the necessary years of training? You can still
make it — but it’ll cost you.
Child prodigy turned international violin superstar Vanessa-Mae, who is most famous for her unusual music style — a
techno-acoustic violin crossover
– will be competing for Thailand in alpine skiing during the upcoming games in
Sochi. Born in Singapore, Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson received British
citizenship thanks to her stepfather. She was raised in Britain, but owing to
her Thai father she still holds a passport that will allow her to race
alongside skiing powerhouse nations such as Austria, Germany, and the United
States. (Don’t expect her to thank him for the privilege, though: he famously disowned
her in the mid-1990s over issues of her attire, or lack thereof.) No matter,
says the new pride of Bangkok. “I wanted to compete for Thailand because
there is a part of me which I have never celebrated — being Thai,” she said in an interview.
Of course, in Thailand — where average temperatures do not
fall below 55 degrees Fahrenheit — it just so happens that she doesn’t face
much competition either. And Vanessa-Mae, whose fortune in 2006 was estimated at $52
million, wasn’t one to be hindered by Thailand’s lack of any
ski facilities whatsoever: in 2009, she moved to the Swiss resort of Zermatt to train
on its snowy slopes.
Vanessa-Mae and another alpine skier, Kanes Sucharitakul, will comprise
Thailand’s second Winter Olympic
team ever: the country’s only previous competitor had been electrical
engineering professor Prawat Nagvajara, who competed in cross-country skiing.
The violinist says she is fully aware of her own athletic shortcomings.
“When it comes to music I am a perfectionist but when it is skiing, I have
no delusions about a podium or even being in the top 100 in the world,”
she said in an interview.
Others in this category — perhaps one of the most common
forms of carpetbagging — include Gary di Silvestri, 46, a native of Staten
Island, and his Italian wife Angelica Morrone di Silvestri, 48, who received
citizenship in Dominica for their philanthropic work in the country. The
couple, who had previously done well for themselves in finance careers, will be
competing in Sochi in cross-country skiing, as
Dominica’s first-ever Winter Olympics team.
2. Sell your talents as an
athlete-mercenary.
Some Olympic athletes compete for gold; others compete for
cash. Though the practice is generally frowned upon, plenty of would-be Olympians
sell their athletic talents to distant nations hungry for a medal.
Bulgarian weightlifters and Kenyan long-distance runners tend
to dominate in this category, as they hail from poor countries that also happen
to boast specialized athletic prowess, which can be had — for a price. In the
2012 London Olympics, Bulgarian weightlifters Boyanka Kostova and Valentin
Hristov represented Azerbaijan for the hefty fee of more than $500,000.
Bahrain is a top importer of Kenyan long-distance
runners, though the practice doesn’t always turn out so well for the runners: In
2007, Mushir Salem Jawher, a Kenyan runner who had left for to Bahrain a few years earlier, was ousted from his new home after running a
marathon in Israel, a country that Bahrain does not recognize.
Qatar, meanwhile, invests heavily in athletes from both Kenya
and Bulgaria. In 2000, Qatar’s government bought
an entire Bulgarian weightlifting team — eight athletes in total – in exchange for citizenship and a
little over $1 million. In 2003, it also reportedly bought
two Kenyan long-distance runners: Stephen Cherono and Albert Chepkurui, who
duly became Qatari Olympians Saif Saeed Shaheen and Ahmad Hassan Abdullah (neither
Cherono nor Chepkurui were actually Muslim).
Athletic mercenaries, as it turns out, are hardly a new
phenomenon. During the Hellenistic period, athletes competing in the Greek
Olympics often sold their talents to the highest-paying
nation states. Greek political leaders saw the Olympic Games as an opportunity
to win political influence with their neighbors, and were willing to pay for
that chance. These days, however, the investment doesn’t always pay off. The efforts
of Qatar and Azerbaijan, for example, have only yielded one bronze medal for
each. And while Kenya
has won gold in men’s steeplechase at every Olympic Games since 1968, Qatar and
Bahrain have yet to make it to the top of the podium.
3. Represent a country that
is not recognized by Olympic authorities.
First things first: to compete at the Games, a would-be
Olympian needs a country. That’s not so easy, however, when you happen to be
from a place that’s been embroiled in a decades-long territorial dispute. What’s
an athlete to do besides take her talents on the road when the nation she holds
a passport for hasn’t been recognized by the International
Olympic Committee?
Majlinda Kelmendi, the 2009 judo junior world champion and
2013 world champion, fought hard with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
to compete for tiny Kosovo in the 2012 London games. (Kosovo declared
independence from Serbia in 2008, but has yet to be recognized by all United
Nations members, and Serbia has lobbied to keep the country out of federations
like the IOC that might bestow upon it international legitimacy.)
“I’ve worked so hard for this, I’ve dreamed of representing my
country at the Olympics, and I really don’t want someone to tell me it’s not
possible to fight for Kosovo in London,” she told the Financial Times. “I don’t understand why everything has to be about
politics.”
Five other athletes tried to compete for Kosovo in London, but their bids
were rejected. Ultimately, only Kelmendi ended up going to London. (Though she
was courted by the Azerbaijanis, she ultimately decided to compete for Albania,
who may have been disappointed in their ringer: despite her previous showings, Kelmendi
failed to even make it to the quarterfinals.)
There are several other unrecognized Olympic committees,
including Kurdistan, Catalonia, and, notably, Abkhazia. The latter is a
breakaway Georgian republic that neighbors Sochi, and its athletes were only
allowed to compete under another nation’s flag (most of them opt for Russian
citizenship). Abkhaz wrestler Denis Tsargush won a bronze for Russia at the
2012 London Olympics.
4. Use your royal connections.
For a certain breed of Olympians, a quick perusal of the
family tree provides a range of options when it comes to choosing flags under
which to compete. With their wide selection of passports and sizable family
coffers, European aristocrats can
hedge their bets and choose a citizenship of convenience.
Take Germany’s Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe, who has emerged
as the Sochi Olympics’ favorite underdog. The 55-year-old athlete, who will represent
Mexico on the slalom course, made a splash when he debuted his race suit on
NBC last week: a spandex Mariachi get-up, complete with fake embroidery, a
ruffled shirt, a red cummerbund and cravat.
Hohenlohe has admitted that, with the flashy outfit, he’s compensating
for what look like slim chances of making it to the podium, joking that he
could at least win for being best-dressed. Hohenlohe’s hat tip to Mexico’s folk
music traditions may also be an
attempt to win over any countrymen who may still be dubious of his south-of-the-border
street cred (despite this being the sixth
time he’s skied for the country): though his grandmother was half-Mexican
and Hohenlohe was born in Mexico City, he grew up far from the country. The descendant of an
aristocratic German family which once ruled the principality of Hohenlohe-Langenburg,
Hubertus learned to ski in the backyards of his European boarding
schools.
“Until I went to Mexico recently to make a documentary, I never
realized what a beautiful, amazing, rich past and culture they have and what a
proud people they are,” he said in a recent interview.
Other royal
mercenaries include the German Princess Nathalie of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg,
niece to Danish Queen Margrethe, who earned Denmark a bronze in dressage in
2008.
5. Or just take up bobsledding.
Passport-swapping isn’t the only way to make it as an Olympic
carpetbagger. Some athletes just swap sports. Competing in a similar or somewhat
less-demanding sport (no harm intended) could, after all, help a down-and-out
athlete regain his or her former glory.
Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones is perhaps the most famous example in recent memory. A
favorite at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jones lost her shot at a medal when she
tripped on hurdle. In London, four years later, she was one-tenth of a second
from a bronze. But just months after that heartbreaking loss, she switched
events (and seasons), taking up the unfamiliar sport of bobsledding. She was,
as it turns out, not bad: After just a year, she and teammate Jamie Greubel finished second in the world
on a two-person sled, earning her a spot on the U.S. team. Naturally, some of
her new teammates — most of whom had spent years training — were none too happy about it.
Other notable sport-swapping carpetbaggers include Willie Gault,
a former wide receiver for the Chicago Bears who made the U.S. bobsledding team
in 1988, and Herschel Walker,
a star NFL running back who made the bobsledding team in 1992.
There are a couple of reasons that so many aspiring Olympians
turn to bobsled: If you’re already an athlete, sledding isn’t that hard to pick
up. Besides the driver, the remaining team members are basically there to push
for a few seconds at the start (and then duck). To be fair, that starting push requires
world-class power and speed, but those are skills that are often honed in other
sports.
But while the Olympic medals may be decided by mere thousandths
of a second, the nature of bobsledding — and the cost of fielding a
competitive team — renders the sport actually less competitive than many
others. (A set of blades can cost $10,000
and a sled up to $100,000.)
And there are only 17 tracks in the world.
Thus, poorer countries without training facilities have been
known to happily accept carpetbobbers: North America, for instance, has at
least four competition-ready tracks and, accordingly, produces many of the world’s Olympic sledders:
Athletes from the United States have represented Greece, Armenia, Venezuela,
and Thailand, among others.
* * *
Olympic carpetbagging is an evolving phenomenon, with new
iterations debuting at virtually every Olympic Games. This year, for instance,
a Tongan luger has emerged as a new type of athlete-mercenary: one sponsored by
a marketing firm. For a price, 21-year-old Fuahea Semi moved to Germany, learned
luge and changed his name to Bruno Banani, after a German underwear company –
part of an ambitious, Olympic-themed marketing campaign for the brand. The ploy
was ultimately uncovered — but, as it turns out, the athlete-for-hire proved
pretty decent at luge. This year, he’ll represent Tonga at Sochi, the first
winter Olympian to represent the Pacific nation.
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images; Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images; YURI CORTEZ/AFP/GettyImages; Buda Mendes/Getty Images; HENNING BAGGER/AFP/Getty Images; CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images
Carpetbagging the Olympics
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