World Aquatics (formerly FINA) has announced a change of rules relating to changes in sporting nationality. Specifically, athletes must now be a resident of a country for three years before changing sporting nationalities, increased from the previous requirement of one year.
As part of the biggest overhaul of World Aquatics rules in a generation, the governing body has made it more difficult to change sporting citizenship.
Upon obtaining initial sporting citizenship, an athlete must have either citizenship by birth, or have been a resident of the country for at least three years prior to his/her first international competition.
In cases when an athlete want to represent a country where they were not a citizen by birth or have not resided for three years, they cannot represent any World Aquatics member in international competitions and must be able to demonstrated by the end of the waiting period that they have a “genuine, close and established link to the country or Sport Country he/she will represent.”
The change of sport nationality rules have also become tougher. Athletes are required to wait for 3 years between last representation for a former World Aquatics Member and representing a new Member.
There is an exception if an athlete has only represented their previous nation at an age group level (ie U16, U18, U20, Youth, or Junior). Then the prior 1 year waiting period is applied.
In one way, though, the waiting period became a little more lenient. When changing sporting citizenships, an athlete must demonstrated uninterrupted residence in a country for 3 years prior to representing them, or prove a genuine, close and established link to the country or Sport Country he/she will represent.” The athlete has to wait 3 years between representation in either case, but does not necessarily have to live in their new country if they can prove a close link.
Editor’s Note: “Sport Country” refers to the fact that not all FINA members are sovereign nations. Puerto Rico is an example of that.
Historically, the standard for residency in a country has been spending at least half their time there.
While the standard for a genuine link to a country are not defined explicitly in the statutes, there are a few examples that come to mind where it might apply. One is in the case of two-time Olympic medalist Arkady Vyatchanin, who was denied a change from Russia to Serbian sporting citizenship because he did not spend enough time in the country during his year-in-residence. He would eventually obtain US citizenship, though he never represented the US in international competition.
Another is in the case of European Junior Champion Tatiana Belonogoff, who lived in the UK her whole life and represented them internationally, but changed to Russian citizenship, citing the ‘huge influence’ of her Russian mother.
Tnis will bring up fascinating sociological and political debates over what defines a ‘close link’ to a country, though the extended waiting period means that athletes will likely be dissuaded from making the change as often.
There are certain exceptions for athletes aged 16 & under as it regards to the choice of sporting citizenship and what triggers an initial citizenship choice.
Other high profile changes of sporting citizenship include Santo Condorelli, who represented the US, Canada, and Italy internationally, just-missing an Olympic medal in 2016 with Canada and winning Olympic silver in Tokyo in 2021 with Italy; two-time World Short Course Champion Mike Alexandrov who swam for both Bulgaria and the US internationally; Darian Townsend, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2004 with South Africa and a pair of World SC titles in 2014 with the US; Mitch D’Arrigo, who changed from Italy to the US; and Shane Ryan who represented the US at the junior level before switching to Ireland at the senior level.
With countries, like Russia and Belarus, being banned from international competition for geopolitical reasons, this change should stem off the risk of a run of sporting citizenship changes before the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Anastasiia Kirpitchnikova officially became a French citizen yesterday, on April 21st. She has been living and training for 4 years in France in Montpellier (South of France) . Her coach is Philippe Lucas, the former coach of Laure Manaudou ( gold medallist in Athens 2004 in the 400 free). Apparently, Julien Issoulié, one of the officials of the French federation is confident to see her able to compete in Fukuoka. Even if rules have changed. She’s competing this weekend at the French open Water Championships in the island of Martinique (French Caribbean) . This race gives a ticket for Fukuoka.
yup very unclear, even in defining a citizen. In the case of a swimmer in the US with both Irish and US passports
would he have to wait 1 year or 3 to swim for Ireland?
There is no more 1 years for anything.
If your Irish passport was granted via citizenship by birth, you don’t have to wait any years. If it wasn’t, you have to wait 3 years. But your 3 years don’t necessarily have to be in Ireland, if you prove that you’ve got deep connections to the country.
Thank you Braden!
I want to thank the former-FINA from telling us what the new rules ‘might’ be without exactly telling us what the specific rules are.
Lovely!
Clear, like mud.
Joel, after some part of the head passes the 5m mark at the finish,the swimmer now CAN BE totally sumerged…a change to the rule courtesy of an USA swimmer that was clearly totally sumerged at the finish at past Worlds in the 50m back, was DQ and after a protest by the USA team and video review, it was reversed…go figure.
Thank you so much. Have been trying to find out for sure.
from here on out aka the Condorelli rule
I’m a little confused by the explanation of the new rules. Are you saying that if a person has citizenship by birth and has a clear connection to the country they don’t need to wait 3 years? Or does that just mean they don’t need to reside there for 3 years but still need to wait 3 years between representing different nations?
I thought one year was enough. This rule essentially will stop any athlete who isn’t a child from changing nationality because they’re forfeiting three years of a career that is pretty brief anyway for 95% of swimmers.
I’m wondering same thing. It’s not clear
On initial eligibility: If someone did not have birthright citizenship in a country, but wants to represent that country, and is older than 16, they either have to live there for 3 years leading up to their first international competition, or wait for 3 years and prove the connection. The number of people who this would apply to would be very, very small, and would usually only happen in a ‘mercenary’ situation.
It would have to be like:
Born in country A to a parent who could not pass you citizenship to country B, you live in Country A (or Country C), but want to represent country B anyway.
So it would be like….Ali Galyer if her father wasn’t… Read more »
What does reside mean when not changing sporting nationality. If a person does not have citizenship of country A by birth but becomes a citizen through Naturalization how is the residence rule determined if that person was born in country A, the family lives in country A, but the athlete attends school or university in country B. Does attending school or university in country B result in the athlete being classified as non-resident in country A. The athlete returns to country A and lives in the family home, when not at school or university.
It’s hard to know for sure, because it’s sort of a new thing, but I would guess that the same “over 50% of your time is spent there” standard would apply, even if abroad for university, etc.
This situation is probably why they’ve added the deep connection clauses (in theory, though in principle, I think that clause will be abused in both directions). If someone was born in a country and lived there until university, their family was there, and they returned home there during breaks, I have to assume that this would clear the World Aquatics standard, even if they weren’t a citizen.
(For people in the Americas reading this, most of the world does not have unabated jus… Read more »
How common is this?
Does impact some of the American swimmers who competed for another country but want to compete for America again. Or guys that gained citizenship.
🖕🖕