Great Britain & N.I. Terminology Question

[PiggyLid]

I suspect if Scotland did become independent during his track career, he might be able to compete for them at World and European level and Guernsey at Commonwealth?

Does World Athletics recognize the Commonwealth Games as an official international event now? If so I suspect he'd have to choose between Scotland and Guernsey/UK in those circumstances.
I remember Sonia O'Sullivan was due to race for Australia in the CG at the end of her career because she wouldn't lose her eligibility to race for Ireland because of that loophole.

[tandfman]

Does World Athletics recognize the Commonwealth Games as an official international event now?

It's not a World Athletics event, but it certainly falls within the WA definition of international competition, and I believe it has always been recognized as such.

[PiggyLid]

It's not a World Athletics event, but it certainly falls within the WA definition of international competition, and I believe it has always been recognized as such.

I found the article, Not quite what I thought but close https://www.irishtimes.com/news/o-su...20Cobh%2C%20Co.
But confirms that if Scotland gets independence Chalmers can't represent Guernsey again.

[tandfman]

Now that I think about it, there may have been a change in the IAAF's definition of international competition that could have affected the O'Sullivan situation. I don't have time to look that up now. But in any event, I'm not sure how the current rules would apply to Chalmers's case if he chose to continue to represent GBR rather than Scotland after the latter gained independence (which I think he might be able to do because he was born a British citizen). That, in turn, might depend on whether he had the right to keep his British citizenship after the split. Lots of unknowns in my mind.

[Trickstat]

When the English T&F team was announced for the last Commonwealth Games, some people queried why certain athletes were in the team. These were athletes from British Overseas Territories that were affiliated to WA but not the IOC and had transferred to the UK. They were wondering why they were not competing for these territories at the Games. From what we have said it is clear that they couldn't have done this.

[noone]

It is true of course that various confederations have different constitutions that give its member "states" (whether they're called states, provinces, home countries, or whatever) more or less autonomy. The United Kingdom is relatively decentralized, but not uniquely so (The former Soviet Union was similarly decentralized, and Spain has recently granted some autonomy to several states with linguistic minorities, there are other examples). The real reason the "home countries" are represented separately in many sporting events, including the Commonwealth Games and the FIFA World Cup, is historical, rather than based on the constitution. Great Britain was one of the very first nations to hold sports competitions in the 19th century, and it was logical that at first they competed mainly amongst themselves. Then, when international federations were formed, most of them (but not the IOC!) allowed the home countries to remain separate.

In Canada, the province of Québec once petitioned to be recognized as an entity in the IIHF (hockey), citing the analogy with Britain, but it was rebuffed because Canada objected.