Flying Two Flags in Athletics at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

WorldRemit has been showcasing the benefits of having multiple national identities, and how so many individuals represent more than one country thanks to migration. Following the conclusion of the Olympics, we have crunched the numbers to calculate how many of the event winners from the athletics at Tokyo 2020 are from more than one country or territory.

Tokyo 2020 Olympics

13 of the 44 of the gold medal-winning athletes, in one way or another, have an identity stemming from another country than the one they represent in athletics.

6 of the 44 of the gold medal winning athletes were born in another country than the one they represent.

7 of the 44 of the gold medal winning athletes have one or more parents, who are from a different country than the one they represent.

26 of all 129 medal winning athletes, in one way or another, have an identity stemming from another country than the one they represent in athletics.

This migrant group contains the talismanic, dominant distance runner, and double-gold winner, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who left Ethiopia as a refugee at 15 years old. These stats also reflect the reality of men’s pole vault champion, Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who was born in Louisiana, US, with Swedish being his second language.

A new era of the men’s 100m saw Marcel Lamont Jacobs of Italy crowned the fastest man in the world, and therefore, the fastest man from America too, given he was born in Texas.

Many gold medal winners have strong connections to other countries, such as the women’s long-jump champion and German-born, Malaika Mihambo, who also has Tanzanian heritage. Another medal winner for the discus challenge, Daniel Stahl of Sweden, flies his second flag for Finland, as his mother was born there. Then there’s also the women’s 800m winner, Athing Mu, who was born in the US to South Sudanese parents, and proudly flies the South Sudanese flag alongside her Stars and Stripes.

An incredible end to the men’s high jump saw two countries share the gold medal! One of those winners, Mutaz Essa Barshim, took home a gold for Qatar, however his parents originate from Sudan.

While the trend continues with silver and bronze medal winners, it seems that across the athletes on the podium, the overwhelming majority of ‘two-flag’ athletes to secure a medal, stand with a gold medal around their necks (50% [13] winning gold, 20% [5] winning silver and 30% [8] winning bronze).

WorldRemit’s Editorial Lead, Ryan Walker, says

“It’s so interesting that in the biggest sporting competition in the world–one which is all about national pride and securing medals for your country–so many competitors represent more than just the country that funds them. Migration continues to positively impact sport, and the surnames you may expect to see from certain countries are no longer predictable. So many of us represent countries other than the one we were born in. And even if we were born in the country we represent, we feel connected to another country. This is abundantly evident in the Olympics, with competitors across all sports visibility showing their connection to a second country, from weightlifting belts, to judogi kits, to Instagram bios.”