Saif Saaeed Shaheen

February 7th, 2005

Have you ever heard of Saif Saaeed Shaheen? In August 2003 he won Qatar’s first ever gold medal at the world athletics championships in the 3000 meters steeplechase. The weird thing is that two months prior to that his name was Stephen Cherono and he was competing for his native country Kenya. Even weirder is the fact that in the final he was racing against his brother who was still running for Kenya. Weirdest of it all is the fact that Saif/Stephen did not move (in fact we don’t think he has moved) to Qatar out of love or fear. He simply changed nationality to make money. His new country promised him a monthly salary of a little more than $1,000 – for life. There are rumors that Qatar also paid a transfer fee to the Kenyan Athletics Federation.