It was the Lionel Richie led Commodores who had a hit with the song “Three Times a Lady” but they obviously didn’t bank on Yamile Aldama.
The Havana born World Championship triple jumper was branded a “Plastic Brit” at the London Olympics last year as team GB was the third nation that she had represented. Believe it or not she is now looking to add a fourth.
She has represented her native Cuba at the World Championships and Sudan and Great Britain at the Olympics. She now intends to represent Scotland at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Aldama who is married to a Scot has yet to confirm the move through her management but is a move that Scotland would welcome as it would give them an automatic medal chance and possibly a gold one to boot.
Aldama was a controversial selection for Team GB as we mentioned on this site, being one of 61 Britons in Team GB born overseas. She won a silver medal at the World Championships in 1999 representing Cuba. She then married Scotsman Andrew Dobbs a television producer who was subsequently jailed for 15 years in 2003 for his part in a drug trafficking ring.
Britain allowed her to stay in the country even though she did not have a British passport and she was fast tracked to receive a Sudanese passport so she could compete in the Olympics in Athens in 2004, where she just missed out on the medals coming fourth.
She was reunited with her husband after he had served half of his sentence and in 2010 applied and received a British passport. She won the 2012 indoor World Championships but at the Olympics finished fifth.
As all of the home nations compete as Great Britain at the Olympic Games rather than as individual nations, Athletics UK have said they have no issue with Aldama competing for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. Thereby clearing the way for her to represent her fourth country at international level.
