Mercenaries Mangled

I have to admit to a certain satisfaction in seeing the “Georgian” pair playing beach volleyball receive a comprehensive whupping from a U.S. team this morning. That’s not because the U.S. won–no one who knows me would accuse me of being overly nationalistic; many others sins perhaps but not that one–but because these two distinctly Latino looking guys lost. As Brook Larmer explains in his fine piece here, it is the year of the mercenary in the Olympics. These two guys have barely spent a day in Georgia (a small country somewhat unfortunately situated close to Russia) and are actually born and raised Brazilians recruited (and presumably paid) to represent Georgia. Maybe technically legal but feels like cheating to me.