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S. Korean Olympic body withholds decision on naturalizing Kenyan-born marathoner

January 7, 2016
Kenyan-born marathoner Wilson Loyanae Erupe waves to reporters at the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) headquarters in Seoul on Jan. 7, 2016, after a meeting with KOC officials over his naturalization. (Photo courtesy of the KOC)

Kenyan-born marathoner Wilson Loyanae Erupe waves to reporters at the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) headquarters in Seoul on Jan. 7, 2016, after a meeting with KOC officials over his naturalization. (Photo courtesy of the KOC)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — The national Olympic body on Thursday withheld decision on naturalizing a Kenyan-born marathon runner with a doping history, citing the need to review his application further.

The Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) said it will need additional information from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regarding Wilson Loyanae Erupe and his positive doping test from 2012.

Kang Rae-hyeok, head of the KOC’s legal affairs team, said the KOC needs to ensure Erupe, who is hoping to acquire a South Korean passport and represent the country at a future Olympics, accidentally took a banned substance for legitimate medical treatment.

Once the KOC gives Erupe the green light, his application will reach the Justice Ministry for the final review.

Erupe, 27, joined an athletics club run by the Cheongyang County Office in South Chungcheong Province last summer. He has won five races in South Korea, including Gyeongju International Marathon last October. His personal best time is 2:05:37, nearly two minutes faster than the South Korean record of 2:07:20, set by former Olympic silver medalist Lee Bong-ju in 2000.

Erupe, however, failed an out-of-competition doping test in 2012 and received a two-year ban from the International Association of Athletics Federations in early 2013. He has claimed he was getting treated for malaria, though Kenya’s national athletics federation didn’t recognize his therapeutic use at the time.

Erupe faces another administrative hurdle in South Korea for his doping history. Under the KOC rules, an athlete who has served a doping ban is ineligible for any national team for three years following the end of the suspension. It would rule out Erupe for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio even if he’s fast-tracked to South Korean citizenship.

However, Kang said the KOC will need to consider the fact that the KOC rule was instituted in July 2014, after Erupe’s positive test.

Erupe, who has adopted a Korean name, “Oh Joo-han,” which is translated as “I run for Korea,” told reporters he’d love to help develop South Korean marathon further.

“I’ve won all five marathons I’ve run in South Korea, and I’ve fallen in love with the people’s integrity here,” he said. “Once I become naturalized, I will respect and honor the Korean tradition. I’d like to play a role where I can motivate younger athletes.”

Erupe said even if he can’t become a Korean citizen, he won’t try to obtain the passport of another country.

“I can always try later (to get South Korean citizenship),” he said. “My life will go on, and I will accept whatever decision is reached.”

5 Comments

  1. Horangih Gomtoki

    January 7, 2016 at 8:25 PM

    This is a total disgrace. Why is this guy running for Korea and not his own country? Of course, it’s all about money. After all, why should he care so much for Korea? Why choose Korea? It’s because Korea is richer than Kenya, and he can cash in on becoming ‘Korean’.

    He is not a patriot. If he were, he would run for his own country, the land of his parents and ancestors. But he’s willing to depart from all that just to make a comfortable life in Korea as a ‘Korean’.
    For him, nationality is just a matter of economic opportunity. He has no roots in Korea. If money were not involved, he would not be running for Korea or seeking Korean citizenship.

    Why should Koreans trust someone like that? A man who will betray his own nation will just as well betray another. If he has no loyalty to his original nation, why would he have any loyalty to Korea? Is Korea a real nation or a sports team?

    Also, what’s the point of getting non-Koreans to run as ‘Koreans’?
    It cheapens Korean-ness into some interchangeable global brand, like Nikes shoes.
    Suppose China gets an African runner, Japan gets an African runner, Vietnam gets an African runner, Malaysia gets an African runner. If they all win by hiring Africans–who are better runners–, are they really winning? Korea has a better chance of winning soccer games if the Korean team were made up only of whites and blacks. But is that a Korean team? Is nationality all about ‘what money can buy’?

    A national team isn’t only about winning. It is about WHO WE ARE.

    Also, Koreanness has deep roots in history, race, and culture. Koreans are Korean for reasons other than the law. After all, North Koreans live under different law than South Koreans do, but they are just as Korean. If Koreanness is to be defined by South Korean law, then North Koreans are not Korean since they have a different law. But in truth, there is a deeper sense of Koreanness that goes beyond the law.

    Also, if anyone can become Korean, then it means any number of people can come to Korea and become ‘Korean’.
    If Koreanness is just a matter of law or piece of paper, it loses its deep and rich historical, racial, and cultural meaning.
    Koreanness was not created through law. It is the product of long history of a race and culture.
    Why are Koreans abandoning the deeper and richer meaning of Koreanness? It is because Koreans are imitative puppets and servants of globalism as dominated by Jewish-Americans who urge all gentile nations to universalize and legalize their nationality laws into abstractions. But of course, Jews insist that ONLY Jews can immigrate to Israel and become Jewish Israelis.
    Korea needs to be like Israel. South Koreans are so eager to win approval from US and EU that they wanna follow in the path of globalism and ‘multi-culturalism’ that is actually causing tremendous harm to the West. Just look at the disasters in Sweden and Germany.

    With very low birthrates and with increased immigration, South Korea will no longer be Korean in the original sense. Koreanness will lose its richness in history. It will just be a piece of paper, a legal matter. Anyone who arrives in Korea and gains citizenship will be just as Korea as someone with 1000s of ancestry in Korea.
    If Koreans are true patriots, they need to have more children and stop seeking approval from the US and EU.

    This is the willful abolition of Korea by Korean collaborators of the globalist empire. And if South Korea becomes less and less Korean and become more diverse, it will become ethnically so different from North Korea, and the Koreas will never reunite, and American imperialists will be happy because their division of Korea will be forever.

    South Koreans should try to reunite with their racial and historical brothers in the North, not unite globally with the world. South Korea will just be swallowed by the empire and will just become a deracinated nation like ones in Latin America that were created by imperialism.

    Koreans should ask the African to be a true patriot. He should run for his own nation and run for his own nation, the land of his own ancestors. He shouldn’t run for Korea for MONEY.

    And Koreans should care more about patriotism than about winning. Sure, Korea has a better chance of winning by using black athletes, but then it is a form of cheating. After all, China can win many track and field events by hiring best black athletes from Africa. But is that Chinese victory or black victory?

    This is totally shameful. Koreans are rejecting Koreanness. Koreans get plastic surgery to look white. They dye hair to look blonde. They imitate ghetto culture of black America. And now, they hire Africans win win medals for them in exchange for money provided by Korean corporations that no longer believe in patriotism.

    Also, consider that South Korea has been militarily colonized by the US for 70 yrs, and so many South Korean women as worked as prostitutes. Korea has been a whore nation to US globalism. Philippines is also a sexual colony of the US and globalism. And South Vietnam during the Vietnam War was a sexual colony of US empire. Given this shameful history, does South Korea wanna bring more black men to dominate Korean sports and conquer Korean women? Are Korean men a bunch of cuckold losers? Koreans bitch about how Japanese turned Korean women into prostitutes, but Korean men are now a bunch of wussies who cuck themselves out and offer their women to men of other races.

    Reply

  2. Horangih Gomtoki

    January 7, 2016 at 8:43 PM

    South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world with 1.2 child per woman. In black Africa, the birthrate is 6.5 child per woman. If South Korea sends a message to poor black Africa that ANY black African can become Korean by law, there will be a flood of black African immigrants seeking a better life. Their ONLY interest in coming to Korea will be money, money, money. That is not true patriotism. True patriotism is love of your nation EVEN WHEN IT IS POOR. In the past, Korea was very poor, but Korean patriots still hoped of independence(from Japan) and unification(with North Korea). But now, South Koreans have become brainwashed with global Pop Culture and shallow Political Correctness that says that nationalism and patriotism are evil. No, globalism is evil. It is the new imperialism.
    If South Korean law can accept non-Koreans around the world as just as Korean as real Koreans, then Korean-ness no longer has any value or meaning. It means that even if your racial and ancestry in Korea goes back 2,500 yrs, you are no more Korean than a newcomer from Africa or India who came just to make money and seek an easy life. Korean-ness has become just a matter of $dollars$.
    It can be bought and sold.

    Korea is less than 1% of the land mass in the world, but it is tragically divided in half. Koreans have so little land, and their numbers are plummeting. But instead of trying to protect and preserve the Korean land and race, the elites of South Korea just want to surrender their nation to Globalism as controlled by the US.
    It is utterly shameful.

    Reply

    • Horangih Gomtoki

      January 7, 2016 at 8:44 PM

      South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world with 1.2 child per woman. In black Africa, the birthrate is 6.5 child per woman. If South Korea sends a message to poor black Africa that ANY black African can become Korean by law, there will be a flood of black African immigrants seeking a better life. South Korean will become demographically colonized by Third World masses like Europe is becoming. Their ONLY interest in coming to Korea will be money, money, money. That is not true patriotism. True patriotism is love of your nation EVEN WHEN IT IS POOR. In the past, Korea was very poor, but Korean patriots still hoped of independence(from Japan) and unification(with North Korea). But now, South Koreans have become brainwashed with global Pop Culture and shallow Political Correctness that says that nationalism and patriotism are evil. No, globalism is evil. It is the new imperialism.
      If South Korean law can accept non-Koreans around the world as just as Korean as real Koreans, then Korean-ness no longer has any value or meaning. It means that even if your racial and ancestry in Korea goes back 2,500 yrs, you are no more Korean than a newcomer from Africa or India who came just to make money and seek an easy life. Korean-ness has become just a matter of $dollars$.
      It can be bought and sold.

      Korea is less than 1% of the land mass in the world, but it is tragically divided in half. Koreans have so little land, and their numbers are plummeting. But instead of trying to protect and preserve the Korean land and race, the elites of South Korea just want to surrender their nation to Globalism as controlled by the US.
      It is utterly shameful.

  3. Horangih Gomtoki

    January 7, 2016 at 8:52 PM

    My beef is not with this African runner. If he’s a great athlete, that’s fine, and I would cheer for him to win for his home nation. He should be a patriot and run for his nation.
    He should not run for Korea just for money and good life.

    And Korea needs to choose Koreans to represent Korean-ness and Korean nationality.
    If Korean national sports now just buys talent from around the world to represent Korea, then there is no need to have any Korean in Korean national teams.
    Korea should just scout the world for the best talent.

    Korean national basketball team should be all black since blacks are best at it.
    Korea wrestlers should mostly be Russian or Iranian or Cuban.
    Korea swimmers should all be Australian, German, or white American.
    Korean national teams would be like those of Gulf Arab States that just buy and hire the best talents.

    Is this what Korean national sports have come to? It’s headed in that direction because Korea wants to imitate all-things-American.

    Ridiculous.

    Sohn Gee-Chung wanted to run for Korea but he was forced to run as a Japanese. Deep in his heart, he felt as a Korean because of his race and culture and history.

    But today, Koreans reject their own race and culture and history. They get plastic surgery to look white, they imitate whore culture of America, and they now get a black African to run as a ‘Korean’ because Korean-ness is now something to be bought and sold with $$$. It’s all about corporate branding and dollars.

    What a dumb nation.

    Reply

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