Last year, Morinari Watanabe expressed his unhappiness with “country hopping” when gymnasts changed nationalities more than once and at the December FIG Congress, new restrictions on nationality changes were passed.
There are two main restrictions: residence requirement and a waiting period for the second nationality change. Until now, the gymnasts did not have to move to the country they competed for, so there were plenty of cases when a gymnast switched to another country but kept residing in their original country. The most famous example is, of course, the case of Alaina Kwan and Kylie Dickson who represented Belarus without ever stepping foot into their new country but there are plenty of other cases. For example, while Yulia Inshina and Marina Nekrasova actually moved to Azerbaijan, Anna Pavlova stayed in her hometown but represented Azerbaijan internationally. Laney Madsen, who was supposed to represent Bulgaria at the 2018 Worlds, lives and trains in California. There are also cases of athletes who move from their home country in order to get access to better equipment or better coaches. For example, Carlos Yulo, the first World medalist for
So far, the residency requirement only seems to apply to people who either switch the country (that is, they held a license for another country) or to those who never represented their original country of residence (that would be someone like the
The other big restriction is the mandatory waiting period if a gymnast decides to switch nationality again. In this case, if they want to go to a country they’ve never competed for before (like Oleg Stepko who wished to switch to Russia after representing Ukraine and Azerbaijan), they have to wait three years since the first switch, while those who want to back to their original country (like Chusovitina going back to Uzbekistan or Pakhniuk going back to Ukraine) will have to wait six years since the switch. In most cases, this effectively means the gymnasts have to compete for the country of the switch if they want to continue their career and will likely never have a chance to go back again (unless you’re Chuso who went back to Uzbekistan after competing for Germany for six years). I understand the sentiment behind this rule and, possible, the recent scandals with Cimpian going back and forth between Romania and Hungary and several Ukrainian gymnasts leaving Azerbaijan likely contributed to this decision. However, it does seem quite a bit like indentured servitude.
One more change applies to countries instead of athletes and restricts the countries from acquiring more than 2 gymnasts in one discipline a year and three gymnasts altogether. This rule seems to be mostly aimed at Azerbaijan and it’s ironic it was voted for in Baku. Most countries who get new gymnasts normally get one, perhaps two a year. Azerbaijan, however, acquired four new gymnasts just in 2018 and 37 gymnasts across the disciplines between 2014 and 2018. However, since the three-year or the six-year waiting period will now stop the newly-minted Azerbaijani gymnasts from leaving, this might mean they will not need to get as many gymnasts every year as they used to, in addition to a new generation of home-grown gymnasts that are now reaching senior age.
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How does it work for the gymnastics that train their whole life in one country but compete for another. Like the two Dutch girls who compete for Egypt.
According to the new rules, if someone in that situation wanted to compete internationally, they would have to either move to Egypt or try making the Dutch team. The rule isn’t retroactive, so for those who already have FIG licenses nothing will change
I think this is a good rule. When gymnasts switch it’s not really fair for other countries. For example, Irina Alexeeva was raised in Texas and has trained in Texas her whole life. She is a product of the U.S.’s top-notch training facilities and coaching–not Russia’s. Russia shouldn’t be able to benefit from the U.S.’s high level of gymnastics and take the U.S.’s leftovers. Russia beat China at Worlds with an American on its team, and it just doesn’t seem fair.
Alexeeva didn’t train her whole life in Texas. She trained in Russia half her life then followed her Russian coach to Texas and kept training with Russian coaches in a club owned by two Russian coaches, so it’s not exactly clear how she is the product of US system. She also does not have US citizenship and Russia was the only country she could represent
The US’s « high level of gymnastics » and « top-notch training facilities » are also the result of Romanian/Russian/Chinese coaches coming to the US to train US gymnasts, mind you. Alexeeva trained in Russia until she was 7 and when she moved to the US where did she train ? Oh yeah, she trained at WOGA, owned by russians former gymnasts !
Ok I get it, I used a bad example. Here’s a better example that PERFECTLY explains what I’m saying. Anna Pavlova, successful gymnast and Olympic medalist, moving to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan benefited from her superb, classical Russian training. She even won international medals for Azerbaijan–which was absolutely NOT a product of anything related to Azerbaijan except the nationality change.
Regarding Anna Pavlova’s switch to Azerbaijan, it was clearly a win-win situation : you’re right when you say that they benefited from her training and that she brought them medals. But she also greatly benefited from the nationality change because she was able to go to big events such as Worlds and got fundings representing Azerbaijan, things that she wouldn’t have been able to do had she stayed in Russia because she wasn’t amongst the best Russian gymnasts anymore.
But I do see what you mean, there should at least be stricter residence or citizenship rules. I don’t think a gymnast should be allowed to compete for a country she/he has never set foot in (Belarus case…)