Plastic Brits

As the Games get closer and closer, the selection processes for each competition is producing the list of names of those who will march into the Olympic Stadium, behind the Union Flag on 27 July.

Watching the World Indoor Athletics Championships over the weekend, I'm becoming a little disturbed at the number of athletes who are qualifying to perform at the Games in a British vest, but whose claims to do so seem spurious to say the least.

The British Olympic Team (or "Team GB".... ugh..!!) has now given places to people such as Tiffany Porter. For those who have never heard of her, she is an American, who was born in America, has lived almost all her life in America, and previously won a silver medal for the USA at a previous World Junior Indoor Championships. However, having found out that she will not be selected to compete at the games for the USA, suddenly remembered that one of her parents is British and that this gives her - well, waddya know - an entitlement to a British passport which will make her eligible to run for Britain at the Games.

Although not in the top five or six of American athletes in her event, the women's 100m hurdles, she is by far and away better than any British athlete. She is not alone in using the rules to switch teams. Around 50 athletes of various nationalities and backgrounds will be performing for Great Britain this summer. But I ask the question, why..?

For a start, if an athlete has been rejected by her country of birth as being not good enough to make their team, why should he /she be good enough to participate for us..?

This is, of course, nothing new. In 1984, the Daily Mail spearheaded a high profile campaign to get South African born Zola Budd, whose claim to "Britishness" was one grandparent who had left Britain some 60 years before..!! At that time, South Africa was still in sporting isolation due to Apartheid, so running for Britain was her only opportunity to go to the Games. It was understandable that she should grasp at the offered straw, but still, it was a tasteless affair made more so by the indecent speed with which her British passport was approved. It wasa tacky, unseemly business that was to explode on the track (through none of her own fault, it is true, but all the same, having her in the team was always tempting fate).

I don't like the Games being exploited in this way. For my money, it should be all about "Our best versus your best". And if our best isn't up to scratch, then that should tell us to do something about it. Sadly, it seems to be all about fulfilling some arbitrary medal target laid down by sports administrators which must be achieved regardless of who does it.

I'm sure Tiffany Porter is a wonderful person and a decent human being. I'm sure she trains hard and is a "clean" athlete. But do we really want her to win medals for Britain..? Shouldn't it be a British born athlete who is competing for us..?

This raises the next question: What happens to the top British born athlete..? Tiffany Porter, for all her attributes is taking the place of one of our own. I do not know who that athlete is, but somewhere is a broken hearted girl who also trained her heart out, and worked as hard as anybody could to qualify for the Games. She has taken part in the qualifying races and proven herself to be the best in the land, but now she has been told that her place.... her vest... will be worn by an American cuckoo.

Ditto this for all the British born participants who will be dropped in favour of "Plastic Brits", wherever they come from.

I agree that some athletes of foreign birth come here at an early age and are genuinely naturalised. They have come up through the British athletic rankings, have trained and lived and worked here. They are a product of our system. There were a number of young Asians, Africans, and others running in the national cross country championships last weekend. They were taking part in a fair race and if, in years to come, they represent Britain, then fair play to them. They will have earned their vest by beating their contemporaries. That's fair.

I strongly suspect that Tiffany Porter, and all the other Plastic Brits will compete in their events and by the end of August will have all jumped back onto a plane and flown back to Ypsilanti, Michigan or wherever else they came from. They'll go back to being American, or Kenyan, or Indian or whatever. Their British passport will go into a desk drawer at home, never to see the light of day again, until required for another high-profile event where they can deprive another home athlete of their due.

This isn't what the Olympic Games are all about.

We know we're not the best in the world. British athletes know their own limitations, and the limitations of our system. But at the end of the day, they're OUR athletes and we want to be cheering on their efforts. We know they will give of their best and should any medals come of it, then we'll cheer them to the rafters. And rightly so.

But right now, my feelings are for all the genuine British athletes who won't get that chance. Who won't be able to have the honourable title of "Olympian" in their list of sporting achievements, simply because somebody, somewhere, had a granny who gave them a loophole to exploit.

I have no gripe against Tiffany Porter as a person, but I would find it very difficult to cheer any medal she, or any of the other Plastic Brits, may win.

Call me old fashioned if you will... call me naive. Call me anything you like, but I still believe this...... It's not about the winning. It's about the taking part.

Plastic Brits deprive our own of the chance to do that.


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Why? If they are selected to participate as part of a British team, does that not mean that they are better than the non-plastic Brits?

It would appear that you have more of an argument to pick with the non-plastic Brits' Olympic Teams Selection Committees than with any plastic Brits.

It's a little beside the spirit of your point, but you said yourself that she wasn't better than the American athletes but she is far better than any British. That would be the answer to your question. She wasn't rejected because she wasn't American enough, she just wasn't a top competitor.

That being said...



I absolutely agree with this sentiment...but it brings me back to 1992 when NBA players were allowed to compete in the Summer Olympics. They argued (and may be doing so still) that we shouldn't use professionals, but we're supposed to use our best. If our best are professionals, what trumps what?

You make a fair point about the quality of the athletes concerned, and I feel I acknowledged that in my post. However, the overriding principle, in my opinion, should be the Spirit of the Games.

The Olympic ideal is like no other in global sport. It is the highest, noblest standard that any sportsman or woman can aspire to. To turn the Games into a cattle market, where athletes can pick and choose vests of convenience anywhere in the world that they have even the most spurious of connections to, cheapens the games in my opinion.

I simply don't like that, is all. I want to see the whole world participating in a human endeavour that transcends the mere pursuit of medals.

The honest, decent athlete who has a dream of taking part... of being there... of working for many years to be the best in his / her sport in that country deserves that chance because he or she is that nation's best. Not to be deprived because some opportunistic outsider had the advantage of another country's superior system and used it to muscle the home participant out.

If you take the logic of Plastic Brits to it's fullest conclusion, then why bother having nationalities at the Games at all..? Why not just select the top competitors in the global rankings, wherever they come from and have a race-off between them.

There would probably be a lot of Americans in such an event, but the world would soon lose interest in it. The essence of the Olympics is that your man can take part He can be there, and even if he gets eliminated in the first heat of his event, he is still an Olympian. He was there and he gave his best to his national side.

People can relate to that and be proud of it. We still recall the efforts of Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards in the Calgary winter Games. He was a hopeless ski jumper. Awful. But we knew the personal sacrifices he had made to get to the games. The Winter Olympics were his dream and he got there. We respected and admired him for that.

To this day, I cannot remember the name of the gold medal winner from that event, but I remember Eddie. He gave us the pleasure of being OUR guy who got there against the odds and did his best.

That's what the olympics are meant to be about.

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You did acknowledge that and I said as much. I also said I agreed with you. Looking at it from the other side, I'd say Tiffany is acting like a sore loser.

I don't mean this in an offensive way, but what she basically did was switch from the lake where she was a medium sized fish (by comparison) to a pond where she was a big fish.

Not offended one little bit. I quite agree with you.


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