is married to his Japanese skating partner,<\/a> for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2014If you\u2019re wealthy enough, you can also buy citizenship or at least a visa with a fast track to citizenship in some cases. Countries sometimes actively recruit, too \u2014 like China with its hockey team, though the details of that are a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With each country having dramatically different citizenship requirements \u2014 some as loose as having a single grandparent born on its soil \u2014 it would not be out of the question for a would-be competitor to have five passports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SO WHAT IS THE CALCULUS BEHIND CHOOSING YOUR COUNTRY?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a matter of opportunity and philosophy. If you\u2019re a star player in a team sport, you would likely opt for the country that has the best chance of winning. But if your main goal is to just make it to the Olympics, you might find a clearer path through a country that\u2019s not a powerhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are also sponsorship deals and sentiment to consider. Gu is the star of Team China, whereas she would have been among a field of telegenic, charismatic figures like Chloe Kim if she had competed for the U.S. And she has deep ties to China \u2014 she spent significant time here growing up, was raised by a Chinese mother and speaks Mandarin fluently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some cases, the choice doesn\u2019t feel much like one:\u00a0Bobsled star Kaillie Humphries\u00a0left Team Canada, saying she was subjected to abuse and harassment from its officials. She became a U.S. citizen barely two months before these Games began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ONCE YOU CHOOSE A COUNTRY, DO YOU HAVE TO STICK WITH IT?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No. However, if you\u2019ve represented one country on the international stage, you do have to wait three years before you can represent another at the Olympics. This waiting period can be reduced or eliminated if all the involved National Olympic Committees and the relevant international sporting federation are in agreement, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy shot to fame at the 2014 Winter Olympics, where he won a silver medal as part of the U.S. team.\u00a0This time around, he\u2019s competing for Great Britain\u00a0where he was born and his mother hails from (his dad is American and Kenworthy was raised in the U.S.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO HAVE NO TIES TO THE COUNTRY FOR WHICH THEY\u2019RE COMPETING?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I see you\u2019ve been taking in the ice dancing. The discipline is rife with pairs where at least one half has tenuous, if any, ties to the country for which they compete (though\u00a0none of the medalist pairs this year\u00a0had naturalized members). Ice dancing has historically been dominated by a handful of countries \u2014 namely Russia (or its historical antecedents), with strong showings by Canada, France, the U.S. and Great Britain. That means if you want to make it to the premier rink, it might behoove you to acquire a new nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore,\u00a0many ice dancers train together\u00a0in Michigan or Canada, so pairs often comprise people with differing nationalities of origin. The ice dancers Nikolaj S\u00f8rensen and Laurence Fournier Beaudry used to compete for S\u00f8rensen\u2019s native Denmark, but Fournier Beaudry couldn\u2019t acquire citizenship in time so they switched to representing her native Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon Proulx-S\u00e9n\u00e9cal used to compete for his native Canada, but switched to Armenia after pairing with Tina Garabedian, an Armenian-Canadian.\u00a0Armenia grants citizenship\u00a0\u201c without any requirement to persons who have provided exceptional service\u201d to the country \u2014 augmenting a stable of high-profile talent seems to count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COUNTRIES CEASE TO EXIST?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dissolution of the Soviet Union happened\u00a0just before the 1992 Winter Olympics\u00a0(back when the Winter and Summer Olympics took place in the same year). The successor states didn\u2019t have NOCs in place, so athletes competed as the Unified Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Olympic Charter makes a special provision for instances of independence, border changes and mergers, offering athletes a one-time choice between representing the original entity or the new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WHAT DO CRITICS SAY ABOUT NATIONALITY SWITCHING?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the Olympics profess to eschew politics, almost every facet of them\u00a0is inherently political.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Athletes who switch nationalities risk being branded traitors by their spurned countries. In 2017, track\u2019s international governing body froze nationality switches and its president, Sebastian Coe, said the switches were \u201cbordering on trafficking if you\u2019re not careful.\u201d The comment was sparked by nations\u00a0like Qatar recruiting athletes with no ties to compete,\u00a0but denying them full citizenship rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even former IOC President Jacques Rogge expressed concern about financially motivated decisions to switch nationalities in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HOW ARE THESE ATHLETES RECEIVED BY THEIR \u2018NEW\u2019 COUNTRIES?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It kind of depends how they perform. We\u2019ve\u00a0seen the divergent reactions in China\u00a0to gold medalist Gu and her fellow Team China member Zhu Yi, a figure skater who won a U.S. national novice title as Beverly Zhi but flamed out at these Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a theme seen throughout the sporting world: Soccer fans can be brutally racist or xenophobic toward certain players on national teams. German-born Mesut \u00d6zil helped Germany to a World Cup victory in 2014, but \u2014\u00a0in the wake of contention surrounding his association with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u00a0\u2014 became the focus of ire when the Germans crashed out unexpectedly early in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,\u201d he wrote upon resigning from the national team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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