What should I wear? The choice of the nationality of migrant medalists in athletics in Tokyo 2020

Abstract

Competitions in athletics at the Olympic Games are between athletes, not nations. The national character is present through the use of national symbols and the medals won by the competitors are counted in the table as national. Most of the competitors who reached the podium in the athletics disputes in the 2020 Olympic edition were migrant athletes and/or those who held plurinational ancestry. This article presents those life trajectories to discuss the criteria for defining nationality adopted by different athletes. This qualitative study, based on research carried out using official data from the International Olympic Committee and with the support of information obtained from journalistic sources, in addition to theoretical analysis. As conclusions, it appears that there is a relationship between migration and sports phenomena and that the definition of nationalities follows individual but also social criteria.