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

Expat

juanml82 said:
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.
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Not at all! Every nation who participates in the Olympics are guaranteed a number of quota spaces. I don't know the exact math, and quota spaces are limited to certain sports- swimming and athletics for sure, possibly others? Next games, try to catch a preliminary heat of the 100 meter dash at 6 AM local time and you'll see performances that would barely impress an NCAA division II coach.

So if you somehow got the Vatican interested in participating, they would be guaranteed a certain number of spots. Probably just one, given their likely population, maybe more if we're somehow talking all Catholic clergy.
 

riggerrob

Have the Swiss Guard set a "sports regiment" just like the American Army and Russian Army during the Cold War.
For example, the Canadian Army paid travelling, etc. costs for my dad to compete at two Olympic Games and a variety of World Championships because he was one of the best rifle shots in Canada. His regiment cheerfully gave him time off to train because it was prestigious for the regiment to have a world-class athlete on the rolls.
Promising young Catholic athletes would be scouted/recruited during high school (taught by Jesuit priests) and sponsored at catholic sports camps. After retiring from international competition, they would be encouraged to pursue careers coaching sports at catholic universities and high schools.
 

Napoleonrules

Banned
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?
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There is no law that states who is a citizen of the Vatican. The citizens of the Vatican City State are whoever the King of the Vatican (who is also the Pope) says is a citizen. It happens to be that you're only a citizen as long as you work for the Holy See (not the same the thing as the Vatican State), you lose your job, you lose your citizenship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPHRIjI3hXs CGP Grey's video explaining how the Vatican works is a simplified and easy video to explain Vatican citizenship and the difference of the Holy See.
 

1940LaSalle

The easiest way to do this is to have one of the clergy excel at one of the individual sports: say, a runner or fencer. I believe there have been Olympic "teams" with a total membership of one relatively recently.
 

ggarner57

I imagine the Vatican could get really good at one of the equestrian sports, like dressage or something, and have a relatively young priest be the rider.
 

eliphas8

If this were to happen it would probably be presented as Catholicism providing the team. The Vatican poaching religious athletes from predominantly catholic communities.
 

Pesterfield

Another way to get citizens is to require all priests, nuns, monks, etc. to have at least dual citizenship with the Vatican.
 
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