On Thursday, August 3, 2006, at 10:45 AM, Winfried Kramer wrote:
Just today I have come across Roger Ruth's question as to the
citizenship of former
USSR pole vaulters. There are some good points in Randy Treadway's
answer, but
things were sometimes even more complicated.
After the end of the USSR, Leo Heinla and me tried to compile lists
for the new
states and were faced with a lot of problems (Randy Treadway pointed
out some).
The biggest problem were the athletes in the army clubs: for instance,
a club was
located in a town in Ukraine, but a part of this unit fulfilled its
service in Belarus. And
in a kind of federation cup, he may have represented Ukraine, but
actually he was
born and brought up in Russia, and only his military service took
place anywhere
else.
So there was no given solution. Heinla and me advised the
newly-created
federations as to their new records, some accepted our proposals,
others had their
own ideas. So some athletes are claimed by two nations nowadays.
Thanks to Winfried for the additional information. With Serbia and
Montenegro now formally separated, it will be interesting to see what
happens with the records still listed, as recently as the 2003 edition
of Kramer, et. al., National Athletics Records, as Yugoslavian records.
