Dr. Leahcim Semaj

Psychologist | Author | Quantum Transformation Facilitator
The Semaj MindSpa — Where Mind, Spirit, and Science Meet

President of World Athletics Sebastian Coe and the Ethical Dilemma of Talent, Nation, and Survival

Here is a question worth sitting with: What do you do when you are one of the fastest human beings on the planet — but still not fast enough to make your national team? That is not a hypothetical. That is the lived reality of Jamaican sprinters. Athletes who would walk onto virtually any other country’s Olympic team are left watching from the sidelines — not because they failed, but because Jamaica produces greatness at a scale the world has never seen. The depth is extraordinary. The problem is, extraordinary depth can crush individual lives.

The real issue Sebastian Coe is raising

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has been tightening the rules around athletes switching national allegiance. The underlying message is straightforward: where you are born is where you belong. Loyalty to your country of origin should come before personal opportunity. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. Noble, even.

But look closer, and something uncomfortable emerges. Because what this position really argues — whether it intends to or not — is that nations own the people born within their borders. That talent is a national asset to be managed, not a human gift to be expressed. That is a significant claim. And it deserves serious scrutiny.

A career is not a lifetime — it just feels like one

Most professions give you decades to find your footing. Athletics does not. A sprinter’s competitive window is roughly 10 to 15 years. Their genuine peak? Perhaps four to eight. There are no late bloomers at the Olympics. Nobody discovers their best 100-metre time at 45. So when we tell a world-class Jamaican athlete — someone who would dominate in most countries — that they simply have to wait, hope for injuries, or accept that their time will pass unused, we are not asking them to be patient. We are asking them to sacrifice the only window they will ever have. That is not a sporting policy. That is a sentence.

Would we accept this anywhere else?

Try applying the same logic outside of sport for a moment. A Jamaican surgeon, trained to the highest international standard, is told she cannot practice abroad — her skills belong to Jamaica. A gifted engineer is blocked from working for a global firm. A master craftsman is told his expertise cannot cross borders. We would call that a human rights violation without hesitation. Yet in athletics, we dress it up as competitive integrity and debate it as though it were a reasonable position. The inconsistency is glaring, and it matters.

This is not athlete versus country

The framing of “athlete versus country” sets up a conflict that does not have to exist. When a Jamaican sprinter competes for another nation and wins, Jamaica does not lose. Jamaica remains the country that produced them — trained them, shaped them, gave them their work ethic and their fire. No medal ceremony changes that origin story. Jamaica is already, in effect, the world’s university of sprinting. Its alumni are everywhere. That is not a loss of national identity. That is the most powerful kind of national reputation there is.

The psychological cost nobody talks about

There is a dimension to this debate that rarely gets attention: what it does to a person to know they are good enough for the world, but their own country has no place for them. That is not a minor inconvenience. It creates a real fracture — in identity, in motivation, in sense of purpose. Athletes in that position do not just struggle professionally. They struggle with who they are. And many quietly exit the sport long before their talent has run its course. We are not managing rosters. We are shaping human lives. That responsibility demands more care than current policy reflects.

What a better system actually looks like

None of this means national representation should be a free-for-all. Reasonable safeguards make sense. But the current direction — tightening restrictions, lengthening waiting periods, anchoring identity to birthplace — moves us further from fairness, not closer to it. A more humane framework would reduce waiting periods for allegiance changes, recognize the reality of dual citizenship and diaspora identity, and put athlete welfare genuinely on the table alongside competitive integrity. It would ask not just “what protects the system?” but “what is fair to the person?”

A final thought

Rules exist to serve people. When they consistently do the opposite — when they prevent individuals from becoming the fullest version of themselves during the only window they have — those rules deserve to be challenged. Being fast enough for the world should never mean being too slow for opportunity.

— Dr. Leahcim Semaj