Too many Africans in European Championships?

Chivito550

Debate on JumpingTheGun about the recent Euro Cross, and the amount of African winners. Good thing? Bad thing? Can it be stopped?

http://jumpingthegun.ie/blog/2013/12/10/european-cross-conundrum

My thoughts would be that athletics should go down the football route in that if you represent your country at any level from youth up, you can't represent another country again.

drquirky

Chivito550 wrote: »

Debate on JumpingTheGun about the recent Euro Cross, and the amount of African winners. Good thing? Bad thing? Can it be stopped?

http://jumpingthegun.ie/blog/2013/12/10/european-cross-conundrum

My thoughts would be that athletics should go down the football route in that if you represent your country at any level from youth up, you can't represent another country again.

Yup- I'm pretty much with you on that Chivito- that said I've been following the debate around this and some of it frankly sounds like Daily Express/ UKIP/ BNP type racist drivel where if you are black you shouldn't be representing a European country.

RayCun

I think the rule is that you can play for one country at youth level but can switch to another country for senior level, if you can demonstrate a connection with the new country (ancestry or prolonged residence, basically)
Which seems like a sensible rule to me.

Everyone gets worked up about Africans competing in Europe, but people move from place to place. Some regulation may be needed to stop some countries taking the piss (as was happening in football), but you have to leave the door open for genuine cases where an athlete moves to eg Denmark to study, lives there now, gets citizenship, and considers themselves as much Danish as anything else.

If you really want to be controversial, ask about residency requirements for representing clubs

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Debate on JumpingTheGun about the recent Euro Cross, and the amount of African winners. Good thing? Bad thing? Can it be stopped?

http://jumpingthegun.ie/blog/2013/12/10/european-cross-conundrum

My thoughts would be that athletics should go down the football route in that if you represent your country at any level from youth up, you can't represent another country again.

Football route is you can play for 2 countries, one from u 21 down and one for senior.

TFBubendorfer

From http://www.letsrun.com/news/2013/12/wtw-progress-1212/ :

Does anyone besides us find it kind of funny that three of the six individual champions at the 2013 European Cross Country Championships were born in Africa. Weren’t the championships started in 1994 basically because Europe was admitting they could no longer compete with African runners at the World Level? We guess not that much has changed.

Chivito550

Does anyone besides us find it kind of funny that three of the six individual champions at the 2013 European Cross Country Championships were born in Africa. Weren’t the championships started in 1994 basically because Europe was admitting they could no longer compete with African runners at the World Level? We guess not that much has changed.

Typical letsrun comment. No doubt Europe can't compete with East Africa but fairly stupid to suggest that's why a continental championship was formed in the first place. There was an Outdoor and Indoor European Champs so it seemed logical there should be a Cross-Country one also. And around that time Europe was actually doing fine, on the women's side anyway, with Catherina McKiernan winning silver 4 times in a row from 1992-1995, and lets not forget Sonia's double in 1998, and Radcliffe winning twice, and taking 7 medals in total.

Many letsrun posters genuinely haven't a clue about stuff that goes on outside the USA!

RayCun

Weren’t the championships started in 1994 basically because Europe was admitting they could no longer compete with African runners at the World Level?

For all I know that may have been the prime motivation for the people who started Euro XC... but the idea of a regional championship is hardly unique to XC. The European Athletics Championship was started long before people started wetting themselves over the idea of Kenyan super-athletes.

drquirky

Chivito550 wrote: »

Many letsrun posters genuinely haven't a clue about stuff that goes on outside the USA!

Don't hate the player, hate the game. At least they are allowed to speculate about drugs and give out dodgy injury advise. Thanks to our boards.ie corporate overlords free speech ain't allowed around here.

ThisRegard

I didn't manage to catch the piece but Pat Kenny discussed this this morning, should be there on listen back or podcast.

pconn062

As someone else pointed out (possible on the facebook), a lot of the problem is caused by greedy agents scouting for talent in East Africa and facilitating in the country transfer in order to make money on the road racing scene with the athlete.

morceli

pconn062 wrote: »

As someone else pointed out (possible on the facebook), a lot of the problem is caused by greedy agents scouting for talent in East Africa and facilitating in the country transfer in order to make money on the road racing scene with the athlete.

Any proof of this? Agents can get people into europe to race with avisa very easy , moving someone to Europe just for this reason seems a bit to much work, If you look at how many African have races in Europe last year i'm guessing its in the hundreds and there were only 5-8 transfers from Kenya to other countries. Of these who has made a huge amount of money racing? Agents can exploite runners in Africa a lot easier. Most money that ages make are from African based runners who come over to race. Most the transfers are to federations looking for medals.

pconn062

morceli wrote: »

Any proof of this? Agents can get people into europe to race with avisa very easy , moving someone to Europe just for this reason seems a bit to much work, If you look at how many African have races in Europe last year i'm guessing its in the hundreds and there were only 5-8 transfers from Kenya to other countries. Of these who has made a huge amount of money racing? Agents can exploite runners in Africa a lot easier. Most money that ages make are from African based runners who come over to race. Most the transfers are to federations looking for medals.

I'm just passing on some of the anecdotal info that is floating around the place, this is one of the areas that is being highlighted. Not my evidence.

TRR

drquirky wrote: »

Yup- I'm pretty much with you on that Chivito- that said I've been following the debate around this and some of it frankly sounds like Daily Express/ UKIP/ BNP type racist drivel where if you are black you shouldn't be representing a European country.

Slightly disagree with you there. Problem is athletes running for a country they have no allegiance or base in. Apparently you can literally never have stepped in a country and represent them after a 30 day time has expired. Argument is it should follow soccer and rugby rules where if you are resident in a country for 3 years and haven't been representing another country in that time then you are eligible. This seems fair to me. From comments I've read and heard apparently the junior winner from Turkey (Kenya) didn't know a lot about the country he represented. This fact was stated on Pat Kenny show this morning. Obviously the granny rule applies and we have benefited from this in recruiting our own African in Alistair Cragg.

ThisRegard wrote: »

I didn't manage to catch the piece but Pat Kenny discussed this this morning, should be there on listen back or podcast.

Heard most of this myself as I was in the car at the time. David McCarthy and Ian O'Riordan were on discussing. Pretty good discussion, just bemoaning the fact athletes are being parachuted into these championships.

morceli

So you don't even need a passport from a country to run for them? tI takes long enough to get a passport in Ireland the way things stand I'd be happy if someone meets the criteria to hold an Irish passport can represent us without a problem. We just need more kenyans to move here for 3-5 years .

TRR

morceli wrote: »

So you don't even need a passport from a country to run for them? tI takes long enough to get a passport in Ireland the way things stand I'd be happy if someone meets the criteria to hold an Irish passport can represent us without a problem. We just need more kenyans to move here for 3-5 years .

I'm not 100% sure about this, probably do need a passport. Obviously passports can be granted quicker than normal in certain circumstances.

pa4

I think its unfair that people from those countries who have africans running for them are missing out on being picked for major championships because their sending the Africans instead. If Africans started running for Ireland people would be fairly pissed missing out on selection.

antomagoo

TRR wrote: »

Apparently you can literally never have stepped in a country and represent them after a 30 day time has expired.

I think this is the bigger issue alright. I'm pretty sure there was an article about this after the weekend saying that some of the countries (Turkey was one I think) were fast tracking visas so athletes would be clear to run at the championships.