While a Kuwaiti shooter competing under the Olympic flag won the Arab world's first gold medal this year, a Kenyan-born track athlete, accused of being "bought" by Bahrain, has won the region's second gold.
Ruth Jebet won the women's Rio 2016 Olympic 3,000-meter steeplechase event yesterday, soon after her compatriot Eunice Kirwa won silver in the marathon. Bahrain has thus been granted its first-ever gold and silver Olympic medals, but the triumph was met with an uproar on social media.
Bahrain stands accused of naturalizing athletes for the express purpose of having them represent the country.
Bahrain's 35-strong 2016 Olympic squad includes athletes from Bahrain, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Russia and Nigeria. The nation has won a total of three Olympic medals, all by athletes of African origins. The first Bahraini Olympic medal was a 1,500-meter bronze won by Ethiopian-born Maryam Jamal.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Bahrain and others like the UAE and Qatar are a part, has notoriously difficult naturalization procedures.
Many attacked Bahrain for "buying" foreign athletes
And demanded that the international committee take strict measures against "athletes poaching"
Qatar wasn't cut any slack
Few acknowledged that Gulf countries are far from being the only ones to naturalize athletes
Naturalized athletes have competed for adopted states since the dawn of the Olympic Games.
According to Immigration Impact, 47 of the Olympians on the American team in Rio 2016 were not born in the United States. And just recently, Britain's Somali-born Mohamed Farah won the men's 10,000-meter gold in Rio.
Regardless, Jebet's achievement is praiseworthy
At her very first Olympic Games, Jebet registered the second fastest performance of all time, falling milliseconds short of beating the world record that was set in 1978.
She switched allegiance to Bahrain in 2013 and qualified to Rio 2016 with the best qualifying time.