That was a very interesting tidbit! Apparently, the kid wrote a letter to the coach, and the coach who gets a stack of such letters and usually tosses the majority of them, saw the last name… the father apparently competed. So the coach looked closer, and the rest is history!
Yes, many athletes representing other countries were born in the US. One must be a “national of the country” in order to compete in the Olympics. Each country determines what constitutes a “national” differently.
Eileen Gu is an American skier who competed for China. Her mom is Chinese and her dad is American. She was born in SF and attends Stanford.
China doesn’t allow dual citizenship and she didn’t give up her American citizenship. She competed for the US until summer of 2019 and then started competing for China. Supposedly she was naturalized as a Chinese citizen in 2019, but there is no formal documentation.
China played these games at the winter Olympics when they wanted a lot of ice skaters and hockey players to be able to compete on Team China. It’s China that doesn’t allow dual citizenship, so they had to figure out a way to ‘nationalize’ athletes without giving them citizenship. Thus, no paperwork.
My daughter was considered a ‘Chinese National’ in a tournament she was in because she was born a Chinese citizen. Others on the team were considered ‘heritage’ players because their parents or grandparents were born in China and the tournament allowed a certain number of those on the team. I don’t think the Olympics allows ‘heritage’ players. Most countries just issue them passports/citizenship, and they keep their US (or other) citizenship but Chinese law doesn’t allow that.
In the men’s 100-meter breaststroke finalhere at the 2024 Olympics on Sunday, eight world-class swimmers glided through a pool … and not a single one would have finished better than eighth at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
After two cacophonous days of swimming here at Paris La Défense Arena, no world records have fallen, and murmurs have rippled through the sport: Is the pool the problem?
If so, many believe, the specific problem is its depth.
It is definitely a slow pool. Shallow water doesn’t allow the swimmers to go deep on the turns and reduce water resistance during their underwater kick.