Russian backstroker Arkady Vyatchanin, who trains in the United States with Gregg Troy, Ryan Lochte, and the Gator Swim Club, has made public threats to change nationalities after this summer’s World Championships.
Spanish publication elEconomista.es reports that Vyatchanin made his comments at this weekend’s Russian National Championships and World Championship Trials, saying that he may decline his spot on the World Championships team in order to speed up the process of becoming a sporting citizen elsewhere.
The tension arises after the Russian Federation attempted to block Vyatchanin from participating in the Russian Trials with the reason that he didn’t follow their specific guidelines in preparing for the World Championships, though they rescinded that order once Vyatchanin pushed back that said guidelines were never actually communicated to him.
As to where he’ll end up, Vyatchanin said it wouldn’t be somewhere like “Azerbaijan,” and that he would be looking at the top 20 swimming nations in the world. His hope is to have a new home established by the 2016 Olympics, though having just turned 29 years old, he will be 32 already when Rio rolls around.
I know from personal coaching experience that most of these foreign swimming federations strongly dislike their athletes coming to the United States to train. Most of them hide their animosity towards the U.S. because they want the glory the athletes bring and there really isn’t anything they can do to stop them from coming. Russia and South Africa are exceptions in that they let their feelings known.
I feel as though there’s a lot more to this story than what appears at the surface
Message to Arkady: You were born a Russian – die as a Russian with dignity. I do not understand people who change their country/citizenship for petty personal gains. You will never be an “American” even when you get passport – you will forever be a Russian – stay Russian and be proud who you are. The worst people are those who change citizenship and then talk bad about their ex-country. America is full of those.
I wouldn’t respond if it weren’t for your last two sentences… They seem very political. People can do whatever they want in terms of citizenship, to say someone can’t become an American because they were born somewhere else seems strange but we should probably keep swimswam to just swimming and not talk about what national team people “should” swim for, just who they DO swim for
I couldn’t disagree more. Should Lenny Krayzelburg send his medals back to Russia?
I had the opportunity to watch Arkady train for three days last April. He seemed like a gentle giant who was receptive to the coaching he was getting. The coaching staff was in awe of his raw power. Whatever he chooses, I hope it works out for him.
Wonder which country he will choose.
Spain?
But Spain has no money now.
This is not the week for him to be advertising for a new passport.
He must do it now, so he can comply the olympic charter rules about changing nationality: “3 years have been passed between the last time he/she represented another country”, and Russian Olympic Federation will not stand in his way to compete at Rio with his new country. Remember Turkey had to pay USD 1,25 mio so Bulgaria let lifter Naim Suleymanoglu represent Turkey in 1988 Olympics (Suleymanoglu defected in 1986).
he wouldn’t qualify in the US, so he’d be wise to keep his athletic status Russian.
Yea, thats why he said he will look to the top 20 nations. He never really said he wanted to swim for the US…
I’m saying his only other swimming ties to another country would be with the U.S.. Unless he was born in one of the satellite Soviet States, I just don’t think he should be allowed to compete for another country. I know I don’t make the rules, but I think that in order to compete, especially at the level Arkady does, an athlete needs to have a legitimate reason to change nationalities. Not because of some petty rift between the athlete and governing athletic body.
He isn’t living or training in Russia now.
I don’t think it should be easy to change nationality, but if you commit to living and paying taxes in a country, your athletic status should follow you.
I agree and besides, The US needs Vlad.
Vlad should be on the US team – hasn’t he lived most of his life in California?
Tea – no, he hasn’t. He came to the us as a freshman in high school. He actually wanted to swim for the US but couldn’t get citizenship worked out. I think that ship has sailed.