Blurred Borders

I’ve been watching the Olympics sporadically on Spanish television with the help of a VPN. What has become clear is that there is an awful lot of nationality-switching. A Norwegian snowboarder couldn’t compete because his Finnish nationality hadn’t cleared yet. Of the four Spanish ice-dancers to reach the final, none was actually born in Spain, and none spoke Spanish with a convincing Spanish accent.

I’m all for this — nation-states are an imperial fiction, after all — but it does seem like events like the Olympic Games are predicated on perpetuating the fiction, with flags, processions, national anthems, and what not. Scooching yourself two countries over in order to have a better chance at a podium place does smack of cheating, however.