S5E1. Albania's historic Olympics. Between wrestling and Russia
S5E1. Albania's historic Olympics. Between wrestling and Russia
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, the first-ever (bronze) medals in Albanian Olympic history were both secured by recently naturalized Russian wrestlers, raising questions about the national sports policy
Dear reader,
welcome back to BarBalkans, the newsletter with blurred boundaries.
The fifth season of this newsletter begins with an exciting new start. As anticipated at the end of last season, this is a summer of big news.
BarBalkans is ready to join a broader editorial project, which will be focused on the enlargement of the European Union and on the countries involved in this process.
We will remain as we always have. Now, as a thematic newsletter specialized in Western Balkan countries, we will be part of this new magazine. All of this is going to happen in the coming weeks, soon you will know the details of this new path we are about to start.
Certainly, it has also been a summer of great news for many others. This is true for the Balkan athletes who participated and won a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
If you want to know all their names, just have a look at the BarBalkans’ Instagram story highlights, dedicated to the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Some athletes more than others in Paris have made the history of an entire country, in a rather atypical way.
Albania won the first-ever medals in its Olympic history - which began at the Munich 1972 Olympic Games - thanks to two recently naturalized Russian-born wrestlers.
Many questions are being raised in the Balkan country about the national sports policy that led to this historic and unprecedented result, which deserves to be analyzed for its political and international impact.
If Russia had not been banned from the Olympic Games, or if any other participating country had offered these athletes better financial and professional opportunities, Albania would likely still have zero Olympic medals.
Read also: S2E1. Back from Tokyo 2020
Non-Albanian speakers
The events that occurred between July 26 and August 11 in Paris mark a historic first in Albanian Olympic history, not only because of the medals won.
Almost half of the national delegation - 3 out of 8 participating athletes - was composed of recently naturalized Russians as “sports talents”: Zelimkhan Abakarov, Islam Dudaev and Chermen Valiev.
These three athletes acquired Albanian citizenship between 2021 and 2024, and were able to compete in the Olympic Games under the Albanian flag due to their sports performance.
As a result, most of the Albanian delegation at the Paris 2024 Olympics could speak only Russian and English, not Albanian. Because these athletes has no ties of blood, birth, or education with Albania, only professional ones.
The issue is particularly sensitive in the Balkan country due to the high share of naturalized Russian-born athletes compared to the total number of delegation members (37.5%). But also because the first Olympic medals in Albanian history were won by athletes who neither grew up nor trained in Albania.
Chermen Valiev became the first Albanian to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in men’s freestyle wrestling 74 kg on August 10.
Valiev was born in 1998 in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and won the Russian Wrestling Championships in 2020 and 2023. It was only in early February 2024 that Valiev was granted Albanian citizenship as a sports talent, in time for the European Championships in Bucharest and the Olympic Games in Paris.
Less than 24 hours after Valiev’s win, Islam Dudaev secured the second Albanian Olympic medal, a bronze in men’s freestyle wrestling 65 kg.
Dudaev was born in 1995 in the Chechen Republic. He won a bronze medal at the Russian Wrestling Championships in 2017, but became well-known under the Albanian flag. After considering ending his career, he got an Albanian passport as a sports talent in September 2021. Since then, he has won a bronze medal at the Mediterranean Games in 2022 and a gold medal at the European Championships in 2024, before the historic Olympic bronze.
Also part of the delegation was Zelimkhan Abakarov, who was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the men’s freestyle wrestling 57 kg at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Abakarov was born in 1993 in the Republic of Dagestan. He won two bronze medals at the Russian Wrestling Championships and a gold medal at the 2019 World Championships in Jakutsk (Russia), before making the same choice - and at the same time - as Dudaev. Since September 2021, he has acquired Albanian citizenship as a sports talent, winning a gold medal at the 2022 Mediterranean Games, one gold (2022) and one bronze medal (2023) at the World Championships, and two silver medals at the European Championships in 2023 and 2024.
All of them have been part of the Team SK Tirana (freestyle wrestling team) for more than three years. Dudaev and Abakarov won international trophies with the Albanian national team between 2022 and 2024, while the bronze medal in Paris is Valiev’s first trophy representing Albania.
Naturalizing Russian-born wrestlers
Sources within the Albanian Olympic Committee explained to BarBalkans the rules in Albania for the naturalization of foreign athletes. In 2019, the Parliament in Tirana approved new rules for obtaining citizenship, including provisions for athletes (and others) in special cases.
The law now stipulates that Albanian citizenship can be granted to a foreign citizen who has reached the age of 18 «even in cases where the Republic of Albania has a national interest» or a specific interest «in the field of education, science, art, culture, economy and sport».
Provided that the foreign citizen must not pose «a threat to public order and national security» of the country, the procedure for carrying out the necessary verifications and controls in these special cases is determined by a decision of the Council of Ministers, «with a joint proposal of the minister and responsible ministers, according to their area of responsibility».
Read also: Breaking news from Tirana
As the biographies of the three Russian-born Albanian wrestlers show, two key circumstances led to the inclusion of these athletes in the national delegation to the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The first one, which applies to Dudaev and Abakarov, is the “simpler” of the two. The level of competition in wrestling in Russia is so high that some athletes prefer to seek citizenship in another country, to compete for medals in international competitions.
Their decisions are driven by economic and professional advantages, rather than political motivations. Albania - like many other countries in the world, from Bahrain to Greece - is a mere “employer” for these athletes, who are recruited based on their sports skills to boost the national medal tallies.
Let’s be clear, there is nothing illicit or morally wrong with this practice. At the same time, the issue inevitably raises questions about the compatibility of this practice with the spirit of the Olympic Games and with a competition based on the concept of the nation-State. After all, it is athletes and teams with a strong connection to their own countries who are competing, not private teams recruiting top talents from the global market.
Read also: S2E28. Who will stop the war
The second circumstance, involving Valiev, is more complex. The Russian athlete had already been a member of Team SK Tirana for three years when he obtained Albanian citizenship. However, until 2023, he also competed in the Russian championship (which he won) as a Russian citizen born in North Ossetia.
The motivation for seeking greater economic and professional opportunities is also linked to political and sporting issues. The ban on Russia (and Belarus) from the Olympic Games due to the war in Ukraine has prevented hundreds of athletes from competing, unless they qualified as ‘individual neutral athletes’. It means competing without flags, uniforms, or national anthems, and proving they have no ties to the military or support for the Russian invasion.
Without losing their Russian passport, many wrestlers (as well as gymnasts, judokas and others, as reported by Russian website Sport Express) applied for citizenship in countries where it was easier to obtain - or accepted invitations - in order to avoid exclusion and participate in the 2024 Olympic Games.
Albania also offered them the chance to compete, following the same principle that brought Dudaev and Abakarov into the national delegation. Ultimately, this is business.
Albania is not the only country affected by the issue of naturalizing Russian-born athletes, but their high representation within the national delegation in Paris made it a sensitive issue.
It is worth mentioning that these three athletes are all wrestlers, a specific category when it comes to Russia and sport.
To clarify, at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Russian-born wrestlers naturalized by other countries won 7 medals (three gold) out of 18 in the six men’s weight categories: apart from Valiev and Dudaev for Albania, there was also the first Olympic medalist for Bahrain, one wrestler for Bulgaria, one for Greece, one for Azerbaijan and one for Uzbekistan.
This demonstrates the dominance of wrestlers born, raised and trained in Russia. These athletes, who continue to dominate the world wrestling scene, have chosen to acquire another citizenship primarily for economic and professional reasons, including - but not limited to - the ban on Russia from the Olympic Games.
Recruiting a Russian-born wrestler often secures a significant chance of winning an international medal. But it does not necessarily mean that the new citizen will integrate into the country that granted them citizenship and for which they compete.
«It doesn’t matter which country they are representing, at the end of the day we know that these wrestlers are ours», Russian wrestling journalist Vyacheslav Abdusalamov explained. «After they win an Olympic medal, they all come back home where they are given gifts and rewards by big private businessmen in Dagestan and Moscow».
Read also: S4E7. Can we really trust Edi Rama?
The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, does not feel the same way: «Sports talents born here no longer flee Albania, but talents born elsewhere choose Albania as a second homeland to train in optimal conditions and climb to the top of the world with the red and black flag», he commented regarding Albania’s first Olympic medal.
While the celebrations in Tirana are still ongoing, the debate about the sports policy that led to the first two Olympic medals in Albanian history is more heated than ever.
Reached by BarBalkans, Russian-Albanian wrestler Valiev emphasizes that «I am very glad to write myself into the history of Albanian sports, I am grateful to this country that they gave me this opportunity».
The goals of Albania’s first Olympic medalist are already clear: «I want to bring Albania as many medals as possible» in international tournaments, but most of all «the gold medal at the 2028 Olympic Games» in Los Angeles.
Pit stop. Sittin’ at the BarBalkans
We have reached the end of this piece of the road.
With the Paris 2024 Olympic Games over, Albania can finally boast of two Olympic bronze medals in its medal table.
At our bar, the BarBalkans, we find a bottle of Konjak Skënderbeu, Albania’s most famous brandy, to celebrate this historic achievement.
Produced since 1967 by the Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu winery - active since the 1930s and controlled by the government during the communist times - Cognac Skënderbeu is named after national hero Gjergj ‘Skanderbeg’ Kastrioti, 15th-century Albanian feudal lord and military commander.
It is produced from the distillation of aged raki, mountain herb extract, processed fruit (grapes, lemon, black plum), sugar syrup, flower honey and caramel. Storage in oak barrels and vats gives Cognac Skënderbeu its special fragrance, aroma and color.
Let’s continue BarBalkans journey. We will meet again in two weeks, for the 2nd stop of this season.
A big hug and have a good journey!
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