Elton Tucker, Assistant Sport Editor

INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC Committee (IOC) president Count Jacques Rogge said yesterday that recent moves by several athletes to change nationalities has become a very 'sensitive' issue.

Count Rogge, who was answering questions at a press conference held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, said the IOC considers that there are legitimate reasons to want to change one's nationality.

"Jamaica is a country where many athletes competing for other countries were born here and left at ages 15 or 16 and sometimes even earlier. If indeed your family emigrates to another country, if you get married to someone in another country and you start establishing your life there and you live there and work there and your kids are going to school, that's absolutely legitimate.

Financial Reasons

"Where we have concerns is that there are athletes who actually change nationality for purely financial reasons ... and there are federations and nations which try to attract athletes that probably would never stay in the country after their athletic careers," Rogge said.

"The IOC has worked out a rule which says that to be eligible for the Olympic Games you have to have the nationality and the passport (of the new country) at least three years before the Olympic Games. This can, however, be waived with mutual consent between two National Olympic Committees (NOCs)."

President Rogge added that his visit to Jamaica and to other NOCs allows him to 'feel the pulse' of sport in different countries and it also allows the IOC to fine-tune its policies.

Two high-profile Jamaican athletes have changed nationalities in the past year. Brandon Simpson, a former national 400m champion, now runs in the colours of Bahrain, while high jumper Germaine Mason is now competing for Great Britain.

extremely useful

President of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), Mike Fennell, said the IOC president's two-day visit was "extremely useful".

"Certainly the knowledge he has given us of some of the activities in the Olympic movement ... can have far-reaching effects on how we plan our business generally, but more importantly for how we prepare ourselves for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and before that the 2007 Pan American Games; and also how we can better utilise the resources provided to us from the IOC through Olympic Solidarity for the training and development of our coaches, our sports leaders and our athletes," Fennell said.