Roje Stona at 2024 Summer Olympics. (AP)
World Athletics on April 16 refused the applications of 11 elite athletes seeking to transfer their allegiance to Türkiye, in a hammer blow to the country's medal chances at the 2028 Olympics.
Four top Jamaicans, including 2024 Olympic men's discus gold medalist Roje Stona, and a quintet of Kenyans, among them former women's marathon world record-holder Brigid Kosgei, were among the 11 concerned.
The full list included Kosgei's compatriots Catherine Relin (Selin Can) Amanang'ole, Brian Kibor, Ronald Kwemoi and Nelvin (Can) Jepkemboi, Stona's fellow Jamaicans Rajindra Campbell, Jaydon Hibbert and Wayne Pinnock, Nigeria's Favour Ofili and Russian Sophia Yakushina.
Türkiye had been offering long-term financial support to recruit foreign track and field stars with the aim of winning a host of gold medals at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The move was prompted by Türkiye’s dire performance at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, where it failed to win a single gold among its eight medals across all sports.
But World Athletics deemed otherwise, saying that approval of the applications "would impinge upon and compromise the imperatives" underlying eligibility rules and transfer of allegiance regulations.
A World Athletics panel found that the applications "formed part of a coordinated recruitment strategy led by the Türkiye government acting through a wholly owned and financed government club.”
Their aim, track and field's body said, was "to attract overseas athletes through lucrative contracts, with the aim of facilitating transfers of allegiance and enabling those athletes to represent Türkiye at future international competitions, including the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.”
