ABSTRACT
When Western Samoa, with a team made up of many talented players based in New Zealand, beat Wales in a game during the 1991 Rugby World Cup, it was widely inferred that such talent migration had contributed in no small part to Western Samoa’s success. Similar comments have been made about many other sportsmen and women from a variety of sports, who live and train in countries other than their own. But there is always a danger that such conclusions result from the erroneous assumption that association implies causation. This chapter explores aspects of one such apparent association and one set of sporting migrants – Kenyan track and field athletes who have migrated to universities and colleges in the USA – and considers the impact of this migration on the so-called ‘development’ of track and field athletics in Kenya. The basic theme is that such talent migration, while having been substantial, must be seen within the broader global situation in which sports exist if its contribution to national sporting ‘development’ is to be accurately assessed. In other words, the chapter seeks to ‘put talent migration in its place’ and to view it as but part of a complex web of international flows. We accept that the development of sport in any country cannot be explained by studying events in that country alone and for this reason requires a more globally-oriented framework.
