Naturalization of Athletes and Nation-building in the Light of the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Sochi

Abstract

The article provides the research into naturalization of athletes from the standpoint of interrelations of sport and national identities building. Naturalization means providing citizenship for foreign athletes in order to compete for the national team. The paper studies naturalization of athletes which is aimed at boosting competiveness of national teams as one of the aspects of the instrumental value of sport for demonstrating strength and power of the nation-state. XXII Winter Olympic Games (WO) in Sochi seen in terms of sport mega events come as a target of research. Mega-events enjoy global status and thus provide recognition of success in sport by global community. The global status of mega events allows referring to achievements in sport as a fair sign for demonstrating strength of the nation. The strategy in forming Russian Olympic team for WO in Sochi supposed recruiting of high-profile sport professionals, mainly athletes and coaches. The article claims that the internationalization of the Russian team has neither led to weakening of the emotional attachment between spectators and athletes nor brought down potential of a win in sport as a tool for cultivating national pride. We argue that the existence of this emotional attachment is a result of aspiration of having an identity with a winner. Thus, national identity comes as a flexible concept related to success in sport. The empirical data of the research rests on the two surveys made before and after WO in Sochi.