Lagat a runner without a country
Posted Wednesday, 22 June, 2005
By Gene Cherry
CARSON, California, June 22 - Olympic 1,500 metres silver medallist Bernard Lagat is a runner without a country this week.
While the new U.S. citizen's compatriots compete in the U.S. championships in Carson, California, for berths in August's world championships, Kenyan-born Lagat can monitor the results only.
He is ineligible to take part in the championships under the rules of U.S.A. Track & Field and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
"There are two points that make you eligible," USATF men's track and field chairman John Chaplin told Reuters in a telephone interview "One, you are a U.S. citizen. Two, you can represent our country."
The second proviso is Lagat's stumbling block.
Since the U.S. championships are the American trials for Helsinki's world championships, athletes must be eligible under IAAF rules.
The international federation requires a one-year waiting period if an athlete's country agrees to a change in nationality and a three-year wait if the country does not.
Athletics Kenya general secretary David Okeyo told Reuters Lagat would not be able to compete for his adopted country in Helsinki.
"Lagat has to stay out for three years from August 2004 when he ran for Kenya in the Athens Olympics. The one-year waiver is only possible if both federation agree but USA Track & Field has not even made a request to us."
CITIZENSHIP
Lagat, the second-fastest 1,500 metres runner of all time, hopes Kenya will allow him to wear the U.S. vest in the 2006 world indoor championships.
He contends Kenya should look favourably at his request because he did not change his nationality for financial reasons as did some Kenyan countrymen who now represent oil-rich Gulf states.
"Lagat's change is not because somebody just came and flipped some dollars in his face," he said recently.
"I want to settle (in the United States) and I want to be able to bring up my family here. I want to live here and work here.
"But it is a controversial thing, and I understand exactly why they (the Kenyans) feel like the best athletes are leaving."
Lagat, 30, graduated from Washington State University and has lived in the United States for almost 10 years.
However, even his citizenship move has provoked controversy.
The Chicago Tribune reported, and Lagat later confirmed, he was actually a U.S. citizen when he won the silver medal for Kenya in Athens, which could lead to his losing the medal.
The Kenyan constitution says its nationals lose citizenship when they become citizens of another country and the Olympic Charter requires athletes to be citizens of the country they represent.
Lagat did not announce his citizenship until March 2005, 10 months after he became a U.S. citizen on May 7, 2004.
"I was expecting it to happen after Athens," he said. "I started (the process) in late 2003, so by late 2004 I thought I would be finalising everything. But it took half the time."
He said he still did not believe his new citizenship would be an Olympic problem.
"Looking back at the things I have done for my country, I am proud," Lagat said. "My heritage, everything is from Kenya. I was born, raised and I was Kenyan for 30 years. That tradition and culture will be in me forever. But citizenship-wise I am American."
(Additional reporting by Isa Omok)
This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire.
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