By The Hunger

The Olympic circus has come to Vancouver with all the global fervour and controversy we had hoped for. With flag mania sweeping the city, is everyone waving the right flag?

Australia’s performance at previous Winter Olympics is about as memorable as the name of the third astronaut to walk on the moon.  In recent years, however, Australia has steadily improved its position on the medal tally.

Australia has won two medals so far: gold to Torah Bright for the women’s half pipe, and silver to Dale Begg-Smith in the men’s moguls.

On paper, Begg-Smith is about as Australian as Marmite. Canadian born, he came to Australia when he was 16 years old after a falling out with his native Canadian team. He has held an Australian passport for 6 years (he had to wait 3 years to actually get it), and now resides back in his hometown of Vancouver.

To clarify, he’s a Canadian flag, he’s an Australian citizen, and he currently resides in Vancouver, Canada. If the IOC’s rules were in tune with the Constitution of Flagging, Canada would have one more medal on their tally and Australia would have one less.

Changing nationalities just to play for another team shouldn’t be so easy.

Dale Begg-Smith’s case isn’t exceptional as there are many other sportsmen and women, past and present, who’ve flown a different flag in their pursuit of victory.

A person’s passport is generally the safest way to determine a person’s nationality (e.g., I was born and grew up in Sydney, Australia and hold an Australian passport. Case closed). For people who have had more elaborate upbringings (e.g., parents are from different countries, or people who have immigrated to a different country), their cases are more difficult to classify than Shaun White’s “Double McTwist 1260.”

I believe someone’s “home country” is like one’s hardware and the “adopted country” is like his/her software. “Home country” can have more than one definition: the place where someone is born or the place where someone spent the majority of their upbringing, or the more complex definition, “who they consider themselves to be more.”

When, if ever, can someone re-wire their hardware? Can the original hardware be modified after new software is installed? 

Just because someone lives in a country different to their own, it doesn’t automatically disqualify them from representing their “home” nationality. Begg-Smith’s case is an example of this. I mean, if I were an elite winter sportsmen, there’d be more possibilities in Canada/U.S. than in Australia.

Australia’s other medallist, Torah Bright, also lives abroad in Salt Lake City, and she was the official flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony. But she didn’t represent the United States, did she?

I find it interesting to see which team a dual citizen will support when their teams go head to head, especially when they’ve lived in their “adopted country” for many years.

Is it possible for people to support two teams equally? It’s a difficult question for me to answer as it’s a choice I’ve never had to make. I would like to think that people prefer one team over the other no matter how infinitesimally small the difference is. 

Many people share the same story as Begg-Smith. The world’s population is always on the move and there’s nothing wrong with looking for greener pastures.

The only way you’ll ever be accepted as someone from a certain country is not by how many medals you win, the number of years spent in the country, or even a flag branded on your body. Whatever country you come from, the most important issue to consider is if you feel honoured enough to fly your flag proudly.

Flags of the World, Oceanian flags, Australian flag, Canadian flag

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