Athletics – impressive victory for Yamile Aldama, future Sudan competitor at the Athens Olympics

Yamile Aldama, the London-based former Cuban triple jumper, had an impressive victory in the Austrian Grand Prix in Linz last night, leaping 15.28 metres, the third-longest jump in the world this year.

Aldama will compete for Sudan at the Olympics [in Athens] after being refused a UK passport until after the Games.

Aldama said she had been in contact with several European countries, including Italy and the Czech Republic. But Sudan contacted her through her agent Andy Norman, the former promotions director of British athletics, and she visited the capital Khartoum […] with her Harrow-based coach Frank Attoh and met Sudanese government officials, who gave her the passport.

Aldama is just the latest top-class athlete to decide to compete for a country with which she has no connection. The International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Olympic Committee have both set up working groups to investigate the growing problem.