AHC/PC: Represent The Vatican At The Olympics!!!!!!!

TickTock The Witch's Dead · Feb 16, 2016

Dis gon be good.

Anyways let's see if the Vatican can send a team to represent in the Olympics. What sports would they most likely play? And how far would they get in the rankings?

Tee hee hee hee hee heeeee.....

Ramontxo · Feb 16, 2016

there is an international soccer championship played in the Vatican by national teams made by priests of all the world. Give the best of them a Vatican passport and you have it...

Abhakhazia · Feb 16, 2016

Maybe an exceptional good Catholic athlete is refused by his government (if they are say, radical Islamists) and is offered Vatican citizenship and support to go to the Olympics?

packmanwiscy · Feb 16, 2016

The only people who hold citizenship there right now are the Pope, Cardinals, other clergymen, and Swiss guardsmen. None of whom are either fit to be Olympics or have the time to train for the Olympics. You would need to have a larger base of citizenship than what they have now. One way could be to change the laws of what constitutes citizenship in the Vatican such as including family members of the clergy or include people born in the Vatican to be citizens. This could be relatively easy, but still the pool would be very low. But you could end up with a Olympic Athlete.

Another way, albeit more difficult to do with a POD past 1900 but would increase the citizen pool, would be to increase the size of the Vatican. I can't see Italy willingly give up large swathes of Rome to the Church after unification. Maybe Italy is broken up after WWII, and the Papal States become their own thing and compete in the Olympics?

packmanwiscy · Feb 16, 2016

Abhakhazia said:
Maybe an exceptional good Catholic athlete is refused by his government (if they are say, radical Islamists) and is offered Vatican citizenship and support to go to the Olympics?

Usually in cases like that, the athlete will compete under the "Olympic Flag", which basically means they don't have a country but are good enough to qualify. That's what happened with South Sudan (2012), East Timor (2000), and Serbia and Montenegro (1992). The IOC has also said that refugees (like what I'm assuming would fall under here) would also compete under the Olympic flag.

The IOC could also mandate that he compete for that country, like they did with women from Islamic fundamentalist countries in London.

threadnecromancer · Feb 16, 2016

packmanwiscy said:
The only people who hold citizenship there right now are the Pope, Cardinals, other clergymen, and Swiss guardsmen. None of whom are either fit to be Olympics or have the time to train for the Olympics. You would need to have a larger base of citizenship than what they have now. One way could be to change the laws of what constitutes citizenship in the Vatican such as including family members of the clergy or include people born in the Vatican to be citizens. This could be relatively easy, but still the pool would be very low. But you could end up with a Olympic Athlete.

Another way, albeit more difficult to do with a POD past 1900 but would increase the citizen pool, would be to increase the size of the Vatican. I can't see Italy willingly give up large swathes of Rome to the Church after unification. Maybe Italy is broken up after WWII, and the Papal States become their own thing and compete in the Olympics?

Or you could have a Pope or Cardinal who was really obsessed with skiing. Wasn't there an amateur Englishman who did something like that?

Of course I am sure it helps if your state is already in the IOC.

GTStinger · Feb 16, 2016

threadnecromancer said:
Wasn't there an amateur Englishman who did something like that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_"The_Eagle"_Edwards

I remember watching Eddie "the Eagle" as a kid/

606jae · Feb 16, 2016

I think the best way would be to have a member of the Swiss Guard compete in one of the fighting sports.

Remitonov · Feb 17, 2016

606jae said:
I think the best way would be to have a member of the Swiss Guard compete in one of the fighting sports.

Wouldn't they be competiting under Switzerland instead?

Anyway, past 1900s, only a total breakup of Italy and revival of the Papal states could best create a Papal Olympic team. Otherwise, it's better to start pre-1900s and prevent Italy from reducing the Papal States to a small square around St Peter's Basilica

Shinsu · Feb 17, 2016

Have praying become an Olympic sport.

TickTock The Witch's Dead · Feb 17, 2016

Shinsu said:
Have praying become an Olympic sport.

I had to admit when I was making this thread that's what I had in mind too lol.

David T · Feb 17, 2016

We had a discussion of the Vatican as a potential sports power at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/z2u0pjoMvls/Ps5VlPlBAAkJ

Alexander the Average · Feb 17, 2016

What if the Pope managed to get into a competition where all of his competitors were Catholic, and as a result they all throw the game in his favour?

Hugo Strange · Feb 17, 2016

Merlene Ottey from Jamaica started out representing Jamaica until 2002 when she started to represent Slovenia instead. Bart Veldkamp won a gold medal for the Netherlands in the 1992 Olympic Winter Games, but competed for Belgium in the Olympics from 1998 until 2006. If given the opportunity, it's very possible that an athlete like Ottey or Veldkamp would choose to represent the Vatican instead. Italian athletes deemed not good enough to represent Italy (because usually there's a limit as to how many athletes are allowed to compete per country per event) could still go to the Olympics if allowed to represent the Vatican. Or a Polish athlete in the 1980s being denied the opportunity to represent Poland because of outspoken anti-communist views could very well be welcomed to compete for the Vatican by the Polish Pope John Paul II.

Expat · Feb 17, 2016

Priests with time enough for athletics aren't that hard to fathom. Certainly in America and probably elsewhere, priests can frequently be found coaching in various sports, so why not participating? Wasn't one of the men in Chariots of Fire a minister? Not Catholic, of course, but a man of the cloth.

So the idea of there being a priest who could make it isn't unreasonable, but I admit you'd need some work on the administrative side. You need an NOC to participate under a flag, and then the citizenship issue as stated.

Zireael · Feb 17, 2016

As cool as the previous post is, we're back to Vatican citizeship thing.

Hugo Strange · Feb 17, 2016

Zireael said:
As cool as the previous post is, we're back to Vatican citizeship thing.

Merlene Ottey gained Slovene citizenship in May 2002, and competed for Slovenia ever since. So John Paul II could have given a Polish refugee who also happens to be an elite athlete Vatican citizenship (even if he would have had to change some laws for it, I'm sure he could get it done). Likewise an athlete from Italy or some other country could be given Vatican citizenship if the Vatican was really interested in having people compete for them at the Olympic Games.

juanml82 · Feb 17, 2016

Expat said:
Priests with time enough for athletics aren't that hard to fathom. Certainly in America and probably elsewhere, priests can frequently be found coaching in various sports, so why not participating? Wasn't one of the men in Chariots of Fire a minister? Not Catholic, of course, but a man of the cloth.

So the idea of there being a priest who could make it isn't unreasonable, but I admit you'd need some work on the administrative side. You need an NOC to participate under a flag, and then the citizenship issue as stated.

They can surely practice a sport, and be good at it. But to make it to the Olympics, you also need a support base: sponsors, trainers and their support staff, a place to train. I don't see the Vatican having all that infrastructure, although they could outsource that part to some Italian establishment. But first, they need to be lucky to have someone in their support staff (I doubt a 50 years old cardinal could qualify, no matter how gifted) good enough in a particular sport, young enough, willing to change his citizenship and have the upper clergy support.

It's not impossible, but those are long odds.

CalBear · Feb 17, 2016

packmanwiscy said:
The only people who hold citizenship there right now are the Pope, Cardinals, other clergymen, and Swiss guardsmen. None of whom are either fit to be Olympics or have the time to train for the Olympics. You would need to have a larger base of citizenship than what they have now. One way could be to change the laws of what constitutes citizenship in the Vatican such as including family members of the clergy or include people born in the Vatican to be citizens. This could be relatively easy, but still the pool would be very low. But you could end up with a Olympic Athlete.

Another way, albeit more difficult to do with a POD past 1900 but would increase the citizen pool, would be to increase the size of the Vatican. I can't see Italy willingly give up large swathes of Rome to the Church after unification. Maybe Italy is broken up after WWII, and the Papal States become their own thing and compete in the Olympics?

You could have a Swiss Guard compete in pistol or Modern Pentathlon. The real stopper is that the Vatican City-state is not an IOC member.

Sian · Feb 17, 2016

yeah, pistol or skeet-shooting or something among those lines is probably the best bet from a sports POV, as those tend to have a much longer active span, with 40-50s not being a too unusual sight.