tv Sports Life Deutsche Welle April 17, 2021 11:15am-11:31am CEST
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news live from berlin up next sports life explores why so many successful football players come from former yugoslav republic and over again you can always get the latest headlines on our web site that's you have your dot com for followers on twitter and instagram at de deputy news i'm nick spicer thanks for watching. we've got some hot tips for your bucket list. to corner. for free. and some great cultural memorials to boot. w. travel off we go. the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing.
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measures are being taken. what does the latest research say. information and context. the coronavirus or the code of special monday to friday on t.w. . was one of the best judoka in germany but not quite good enough to make the national squad so she changed teams application for citizenship of a foreign country was fast tracked. or my became congolese to realize my. i dream
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of making the olympics and fighting for a medal in tokyo in 2021. shot i'm sure enough also changed her religion born and raised in china it took years until she was able to become a german. proved to be a decisive reinforcement for germany's olympic table tennis team which with her in its ranks celebrated an unprecedented success. over at the rio olympics which came as a surprise. i'm so happy. it's not so unusual for people to change nationality but in the world of sports it's become common practice and also a business so who profits who are the winners the losers. to athletes with 2 very different nations changing story. is an expert in this field to decide for sports science degree was about. new
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national jersey all wrote the international judo association is a supporter of rapid naturalization wherever they hail from judoka see themselves as a global family where everyone helps each other so much better. i applied to the cap verde islands and morocco to all i also had an offer from the rishis they all welcomed my application she ended up choosing the democratic republic of congo. angle. because if you google democratic republic of congo and go to news 90 percent of the stories are really negative and as i otherwise had no idea about the country that was an additional factor that had me worried. all you read about is the corruption all the mass graves being constantly discovered and child labor.
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the d r c has huge deposits of rare minerals that make their way into the smartphones we use every day it has also been coerced by never ending conflict and civil war despite the introduction of un peacekeepers claimed gynaecologist denis mukwege summed up the situation when accepting the 2018 nobel peace prize. to. the who did this is. that haunting history did not put off my self made the trip to what remains one of the poorest and most violent places in the world. sure i was scared i was going to a far away country where people live in completely different conditions a country i knew nothing about switching nationality is quite prevalent in sports especially in table tennis. spent 2 years on china's national team before being
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dropped like other chinese players show now received lucrative offers from abroad she moved to a german club which encouraged her to also take up citizenship. the manager wanted to apply on my behalf but i said no i wanted to retain my chinese passport but i gave it a lot of thought the manager said that if i had a german passport i could play another 10 years for the club and that's obviously an incentive for shon shown i had by this point already been living in europe for 7 years winning the champions league and 2 german singles titles she also became friends with kids long on the multiple german and european champion was eager to help her budding and maid of honor and i are going to i'm sure love what if i was asked a few times by senior officials what i made of sound as a player. i said that she could be a big asset for the german. themis and that i would definitely welcome such
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a move in front of the question where players nationality is subject to a confusing array of regulations for world championships show now wouldn't be eligible to compete for another 9 years but the olympics were open to her immediately and. the manager are sorry if i fancied playing for germany and that. i never thought i'd get that kind of chance. i said ok let's try it and i really did make it so amazing. i'm so happy. that. chang shown up became german in 20124 years later at the rio olympics the german scene with her in it's made it to the final where they sensationally claims. with them the most because the i'm so grateful to germany i would otherwise never have been able to compete at the end in pics it was making the switch from china to germany that gave me the chance germany expressed its
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gratitude to shine show now with the country's highest sporting distinction the silver laurel leaf and german table tennis also one of course that's why i'm not with other i know naturalized germans and a to society we honestly would not have won a medal in rio and of course this means funding for the judo association and grounds for youth programs. for a lot of countries sports authority is changing nationality is evidently an investment in the future. while there are always 2 sides sure i have the option of living my dream and going to the olympics but there's no country in the world that would go to the trouble of issuing a passport in this case for a german if it did not stand to gain. a full hoping he'd done so i got a new passport after just a few months it was handed over to her in kinshasa by dominic. government official
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but the president. since then she's been competing for the seat she was before i was touched because everyone was saying it's impossible she's white neither of her parents are from congo so i didn't know how i was supposed to make her congolese what i said was it's a sports nationality which no one understood when it was done i felt very emotional . he. has since gone on to win 2 world cup of gold at the african championships for her new country. tracking her citizenship application turned out to be very profitable. never been a gold medal for congo before and it was memory who gave it to us. that gold medal also meant money for the association is there any benefit for locally born. in fact the team for the tokyo comprised soley of athletes who. live.
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in german table tennis the practice of recruiting chinese players goes back decades . to see coming wasn't even mine generations we had 3 women in the national team just a growing gemini. where they were competing for places in the european and world championship squads which wasn't good news for everyone and that is the i of course it impedes our own news programs why should i bother to develop 10 in cooley good players virus government training program only to see those places taken by others that's of. germany is not the only country naturalizing table tennis players from china it's a global phenomenon that. table tennis at the olympics could arguably be called a chinese championship a quarter of male and female players at the rio games were born in china. they
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competed for over a 3rd of all nations represented including the u.s. turkey canada qatar brazil and china itself of course. as the number one sport table tennis enjoys world class backing in china. look at the chinese women steyn 40 players in total but only 5 of them will go to the major tournament the other $35.00 players are just kind of training partners. and a fair number of them will switch to another country as a result table tennis is the world's leading sport when it comes to naturalized. in rio they comprise 31 percent of entrants while the figure for judo was 11 percent. qatar is one of the various countries using financial incentives to attract new recruits the success of foreign born athletes suddenly representing turkey has also
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been controversial. the african national ethics chief responded the present situation is wrong what we have is a wholesale market for african talent open to the highest bidder the world governing body has now amended the rules to prevent athletes switching in. legion's overnight. is an olympic winning javelin thrower and an official athlete representative. world athletics the old i really tighten things up creating new stipulations for both athletes and associations what i know as an athlete representative is that switching your country or your jersey is not always the same we have refugee stories where young athletes have arrived in a new country due to their personal plight. and once they're of course they can't wait to take their passion even up to the international level. and that's completely understandable. in
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26 years later she became german and is now considered a major medal contender. also lefty theo piazza refugee becoming a dutch citizen and world beating the middle and long distance runner but some athletes end up stateless. had to leave the democratic republic of congo as a young orphan but later competed at the rio olympics in the refugee team. at the tokyo games. to represent the same country that other top have been forced to flee from on the other hand the d.l.c. team has won some new fans. i'll be cheering on congo in the olympics. as so often sports is not a level playing field this athlete got
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a new passport in no time while this one had to wait and overcome a series of hurdles. it's not felt i could have competed for longer if i had a german possible tele out. but i had to wait 8 years to get it. and by then i'd gotten older. and in time it takes you just one or 2 years to get the passports in my opinion the rules around the fact that. the national olympic committee could even things up but the world's biggest sports organization has refused putting the ball in the court of the national associations switching nationalities in the sports world is a bit like table tennis the seemingly endless back and forth and for the time being each country plays by the rules which it sets itself.
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in good shape. then killed a child. how can one lead to normal life with a potentially deadly virus they are working on a vaccine better therapeutic drugs. new may be able to defeat the virus one day we talked to hendricks today leaving a child. good shit. on the toilet. they want to race. you know what is never far away. water and wealth and what the people of all took made of it that's going to be the coming from my tour of the city today and it's always have a lot on my list tour when. be complete without a trip to st mary and that's the. 60 minutes of the. first group.
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i'm sure that of us as we are. almost inseparable. what's a big part of what's. to be a book. hello and welcome to in good shape as always directly from berlin this is where in 19021 of the 1st persons in germany was diagnosed with hiv that's the wires which causes aids back in those days this disease was not treatable and it caused a lot of fear thanks to medical progress and doctors like me a lot has changed and improved some.
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