London 2012 Olympics: 61 'plastic Brits' of the 542 Team GB members were born abroad "There are no Plastic Brits," he said. As far as I'm concerned, if you're a British citizen with a British passport and you are eligible to compete for this country, then fantastic. If you win a place on merit, you should be in the team. I have absolutely no problem with that at all. If you actually look at our eligibility rules in this country, it's very, very hard to get citizenship compared to other countries. We don't do passport trading as many nations do. Yes, we've got a number of individuals in the team who are dual passport-holders or who have gained nationality over the last few years, but I'm comfortable with where we've got to, and there are no Plastic Brits. Of all the 26 Olympics sports, athletics has received the lion's share of attention when it comes to new arrivals from overseas. The appointment of United States-born dual national Tiffany Porter as captain of the British athletics team at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March sparked a major controversy after Porter was asked by a reporter to prove her British credentials by reciting the national anthem. She refused. But, in reality, Britain's 78-strong athletics squad contains relatively few overseas-born team members compared to basketball and handball, who will each be fielding nine foreign-born competitors in London. The figures are hardly surprising, however, given the paucity of home-based players available to both sports when London was awarded the Games seven years ago. Before the arrival of the Olympics, handball had just 600 registered players in the UK. It will be reinforced in London with dual nationals from the sport's heartlands in France, Germany and Scandinavia. They will be joining Team GB members who originate from as far afield as Australia, Sudan, Bermuda and Nigeria - an eclectic mix of sporting talent that Hunt insists is merely a reflection of the multi-cultural nature of modern British society. "You could probably hear all 205 languages of the Olympic world here in London, and I think our team is massively representative of Great Britain in 2012," he said.