Plastic Brits, Wrestling Dilemmas and Jumping through Hoops

Beijing 2008. Great Britain achieves the entirely satisfactory result of 4th place in the Olympic Medals table. A creditable return on Lottery finding and investment. Subsequently the pressure starts to mount with regard to performances at London 2012, the ante being upped by a home games. Charles Van Commenee, a dutchman, is recruited as UK Athletics Performance Director with a brief to get results. Van Commenee famously called Kelly Sotherton 'a wimp' at the Athens Olympics in 2004 when she exceeded expectations and finished in bronze medal position, but ought, in his opinion to have put herself more on the line in the final 800m event. That uncompromising and ruthless approach has continued in his current role. Charles is not interested in national sensitivities. He wants winners and athletes who can fulfil his objective. Ultimately Van Commenee will be judged purely on Team GB's athletic medal tally.

So we now have a triple jumper, Yamile Aldama, an athlete who has represented both Cuba and Sudan in previous Olympics, and a team captain (Charles' decision), for the 2012 Indoor World Championships, Tiffany Porter,who hails from Michigan USA and addresses the team in a pronounced American accent. Yamile delivered an indoor gold, Porter produced a silver medal.
What is British? Yamile has a British husband, he has just left a British prison,  and has lived here for 11 years. Her children are British. Porter has an English mother, Nigerian father and dual nationality.
Mo Farah? Dear to my heart. Fantastic person and amongst the favourites (please let any recent blip be part of the glorious Salazar plan!) for gold this Summer in the long distance events. Born in Somalia and came here age 8. Now training full time in Portland, Oregon, USA and  funded by a galaxy of international sponsors.
Mo's father however is British.

 There are numerous more examples in athletics alone. Mo's greatest rival for Olympicx gold is likely to be Bernard Lagat of the USA, now, but previously of Kenya. The British Olympic team may feature athletes originating  from a complete melting pot of birth countries. Shana Cox and Michael Bingham both 400m (both US born), Shara Proctor long jump (Anguillan).
Olympic history is littered with medal winners representing countries other than where they were born. One of the most recently shameful was recounted by David Walsh in the Sunday Times recently. At Beijing 2008 Rashid Ramzi, Moroccan born, delivered the 1500 m men's gold for... Bahrain! They had apparently paid £1m for his services. I had to smile (grimace?) to learn that subsequently Ramzi was stripped of the gold for failing a doping test. Poor old Bahrain - I doubt they got their money back!
Athletics is though the tip of the iceberg. The British Handball team squad, per Owen Slot, comprises 19 dual nationals, GB Basketball has 10 and Volleyball 9. We are paying hard cash for this. Will we find justification in a glance a the medals' table or the sound of a national anthem for an athlete who does not know God Save the Queen?? This is all so much money politics. The huge investment and constantly escalating cost of this Olympics demands British success on the tracks, fields and rings.
A particularly controversial Team GB policy surrounds wrestling. For almost 10 years British Wrestling has pursued improvement by recruiting Eastern European, particularly Ukranian, wrestlers to work with the team. A significant number stayed long enough to become eligible for Team GB and several more married and thereby gained eligibility.  The Home Office was said to be busy accelerating the applications of Eastern European wrestlers to gain British citizenship through 'convenience marriages' to British wrestlers. The team is now dominated by 'plastic brits'. The policy is said to be under review post 2012 with funding under scrutiny. One of the 'plastics', Myroslav Dykun has failed a drugs test and will not now compete. Nonetheless he took the place and opportunities of a British wrestler.
NBA Superstar Byron Mullens announced his arrival in Team GB in true american fashion 'Yessir! I will be in London this Summer. 2012 Olympic Games'. Bring it on!
UPDATE 9.8.12
I wrote this blog 5 months ago. A billion words have been written on the subject - many distasteful (Daily Mail). As the Games, the fantastically successful Games, both as an entity and from a British perspective, draw to a close (sadly!) it is interesting to note and to consider the success or otherwise of, by way of example, some of the athletes mentioned in this post.
Yamile Aldama  - placed 5th in the Triple Jump final
Tiffany Porter - reached the semi finals of the 100m hurdles
Shana Cox - reached the semi finals of the 400 meters
Michael Bingham - reached the semi finals of the 400 meters - has the relay to come
The GB Handball Team - sustained serious losses in every match
Byron Mullens - withdrew from Team GB before the Games with a foot injury.
None of the above set the world on fire. In the majority of cases another athlete could have competed in their place. Their participation has not greatly enhanced any cause. The outcomes may have been different on another day. I wonder though out loud whether this policy was the right course.

TRUE BRIT #  LEGACY