Haiti's Olympic team in London isn't very Haitian

ESPN ^ | 7/22/2012 | AP

[Saije]

Four of Haiti's five Olympians at the London Games have something in common -- they're not from Haiti.

With millions of Haitians living on $2 a day or less and hundreds of thousands of people rendered homeless by a devastating earthquake two years ago, the country struggles to produce world-class athletes. But those with Haitian links are still eager to represent the small Caribbean country.

"I still feel Haitian even if I wasn't born there," 21-year-old sprinter Marlena Wesh said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Wesh, who will run in the 200 and 400-meter races at the Olympics, grew up in Virginia and is a senior at Clemson University. Her parents are from Haiti.

Besides having family ties to Haiti, the four foreign-born Olympians will be competing in track and field, including the former college roommate of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Samyr Laine, a 28-year-old triple jumper, is from New York and roomed with Zuckerberg at Harvard. He was the 14th person to sign up for Zuckerberg's social networking site...

There's nothing unusual about athletes from multiethnic nations like the United States or Britain representing other countries. But what may be surprising to some is that Haiti, which seems to lurch from one calamity to another, is being represented in London at all.

The country does pose unusual challenges for athletes. Three of the country's five competitive running tracks are home to thousands of people in tents and shanties who were displaced by the January 2010 earthquake. The office of the Haitian Olympic Committee overlooks a hillside shantytown and has a budget of only $400,000. The U.S. Olympic Committee's budget is about $170 million.

[Saije]

Haitian enough I guess, as these things go.

[1raider1]

The Romans were wise enough to ban the classical Greek games before they had sunk to the level of these modern ones.

[dsrtsage]

Worlds really bad ideas files:

So, I was thinking to myself..”Hey, when am I ever going to be in Haiti again?”...so I took the rubber off and...

[CaptainK]

It happens here too.

Dianne de Leeuw took the silver medal the year Dorthy Hamill took gold. De Leeu was born in California but skated for the Netherlands.

[raybbr]

What damn difference does it make anymore? We have most American citizens now now define themselves as something other than American first.

Hispanic-American

African-America

Asian-American

How many people do you know that simply call themselves American? I do.

[Venturer]

My guess is that none of these people could have made the U.S. Olympic team.But they wanted to go to the Olympics.

[af_vet_rr]

My guess is that none of these people could have made the U.S. Olympic team.But they wanted to go to the Olympics.

That's exactly what I was thinking. A program with a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars, or a program with a budget of $170 million?

[Chode]

i know a guy who's daughter is on the UK b-ball team, but at least she was actually born there...

her mom is English and married him while he was stationed there in the Air Force

[dangus]

I remember one year the entire Italian hockey team on the ice was from Brooklyn.

[fnord]

$400K budget (obviously OPM) for only 5 athletes, in a country where few make more then $1000 per year.

Methinks a few “Olympic committee” bureaucrats are living very high on the hog there.

[xp38]

There will be over 10 thousand athletes. There are 302 events. That means probably somewhere over a thousand will get medals given teams get multiple medals. That leaves around 9 thousand without. They do get a participation medal and scroll however. They get two weeks in London if they wish to stay the whole time. They are called Olympic tourists. Non spectator or media version.

[stevie_d_64]

Whatever happened to ALLLLLLLL that money that was sunk into Haiti after that natural disaster thing that got everyones bowels in an uproar???

And we STILL hear of people living in squalor and unsanitary conditions today???

Seems to me that money could have bought a lot of roofs over peoples heads, and other necessities, and gotten those folks up and on their feet...

Don’t tell the money given so far was not enough...I don’t want to hear that line of BS at all...

Just curious...

[stevie_d_64]

http://blog.givewell.org/2011/01/10/how-much-money-has-been-given-for-haiti-earthquake-relief-putting-the-numbers-in-perspective/

Wow, thats a lot of moolahhh...