Coe: We will adopt tough stance on athletes switching nationalities

GABORONE, Botswana (CMC):

President of World Athletics Sebastian Coe has made it clear that he will not make it easy for athletes hoping to switch their nationalities.

His comments have come following a recent decision by the World Athletics Nationality Review Panel to reject a request by several Jamaican and Kenyan athletes to switch their allegiances to Turkiye.

Jamaica’s Olympic champion Roje Stona along with compatriots Jaydon Hibbert, Rajindra Campbell and Wayne Pinnock were among 11 athletes whose applications were rejected.

Speaking in an interview on Friday ahead of the World Athletics Relays event in Botswana, Coe said he would continue to adopt a tough stance on the issue.

“The concept is very simple: There should be a very clear understanding and philosophy that the country an athlete starts their career in is the country that they finish their career in.

“And for global championships to have meaning and to have understanding, people need to witness championships where you have national-based competitions,” Coe said.

Coe said a World Athletics panel examined every request to switch nationality and that he accepted that in some cases there would be circumstances in which it was acceptable, such as marriage or “political intolerance”.

However, he said Turkiye’s bid to recruit elite athletes from other countries, by offering them financial packages in a bid to boost its medal count at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, was the kind of move that would always be rejected.

“If it is simply about wanting to move from one federation to another, that doesn’t fall into that criteria. We will remain tough.

“It’s very important; most federations rely very heavily on government investment, and government investment will dry up if those governments think that they are investing in talent programmes for other countries,” Coe said.