A growing number of athletes, unable to qualify to compete for their home country, are turning to their ancestry to give them a shot at the Olympic games. The most talked about example -- the 2004 Greek baseball team -- where all but two of the players are actually American or Canadian. Since the host country is required to field a team in every sport in the Olympics, and the Greeks aren't really into baseball, they looked for promising ballplayers with Greek bloodlines in their family tree to fill out their roster.

Sound unusual? The practice is actually more common than you might think, despite IOC (International Olympic Committee) rules requiring that all Olympic competitors hold a passport of the country they want to represent. Many countries will still consider waiving their immigration and citizenship standards to welcome an athlete who might win an Olympic medal. In addition to their baseball team, the Greek softball team also includes a number of prominent American athletes. An American 400-meter runner named Malachi Davis used his mother's birth in Britain to qualify for a British passport and a spot on the British track team, after not being good enough to qualify for the US team.

While I'm all for people embracing their ancestry, is this practice really fair to the Olympic hopeful who loses the treasured spot they have worked for their entire life to a foreign athlete?