Why one athlete ditched the U.S. Olympic team to make history for another country.
One of Jordin Andrade's earliest memories was watching his uncle Henry run in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Henry also played in the NFL briefly, but for 4-year-old Jordin, the Olympics was much more exciting. Because even though he was born in the U.S., Uncle Henry was one of four athletes on the first ever Olympic team from Cape Verde, a small island nation 300 miles off the west coast of Africa with a population of about 500,000 people. (It's also known as the Republic of Cabo Verde.)
The Andrade family — including Jordin's father, Joe — immigrated to the United States from Cape Verde in 1960, just two years before Uncle Henry was born. "This is an opportunity to represent me, my family, my people and my country," Henry told the L.A. Times that year. "Cape Verde is so small and so poor. The place needs a lot of giving."
"That was a big inspiration to me as a kid," Jordin said in an interview with Idaho's KTVB7. "'Wow, my bloodline has some athletics.'"
Photo by Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images.
It took Jordin Andrade until his junior year of high school to follow in his uncle's footsteps, but he did.
During high school, he became passionate about track and field and enlisted his Uncle Henry as a training coach. After graduation, Andrade ran for a junior college in his native California before being recruited by Boise State, where he went on to top national rankings. He even set a school-wide record in the 400-meter hurdles during his senior year and ran a 49.24 at his last NCAA Championships that same year — well below the Olympic qualifying time of 49.4.
Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.
Qualifying for the Olympics was one thing. But Andrade still had another hurdle to face: Which country should he run for?
"It was between what everybody wanted me to do and what I wanted to do," he told South Coast Today. "Everyone I associate myself with is from the U.S. and they wanted me to represent."
At the time, Andrade had never even visited his ancestral home in Cape Verde. But his mind was made up after visiting New Bedford, Massachusetts — a small whaling town with a large Cape Verdean population. The trip gave him an opportunity to meet and connect with great-aunts and uncles and cousins he'd never met. Even the Cape Verdean Prime Minister José Maria Neves greeted him on one of his East Coast trips.
"When I first came out there, I wasn’t expecting much," Andrade told South Coast Today. "I ended up getting a big standing ovation and I met a lot of people with a lot of connections."
"I chose Cape Verde because that’s my family."
Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.
Andrade set off for Rio in 2016 as a representative of Cape Verde, and in his very first race he ... was disqualified before he finished.
It didn't matter that he finished the race with a qualifying time of 49.35 seconds — the judges claimed that he intentionally knocked over a hurdle in the last 50 meters, which was an automatic disqualification.
As you can imagine, Andrade was upset. And so was the entire country he was representing. "My phone hasn't stopped ringing, everyone wanted an explanation that I couldn't explain," he told KTVB7. "I had to sit in my room watching the clock, and prep my body as if I was running the next day just in case."
Cape Verde officials immediately filed an appeal, and what followed was eight tense hours of waiting and deliberation.
Eventually, the judges agreed to overturn their decision and reinstated Andrade as the sixth-place finisher in the race, making him the first Cape Verdean athlete ever to advance to the Olympic semifinals.
That might seem like a small feat compared to a gold medal. But that monumental moment was enough to make Cape Verdeans across the globe burst with pride:
While Andrade may not have advanced past the semifinals, he still achieved an incredible feat — for himself, and for his entire heritage.
Sure, Andrade could have run for the United States. But instead, he became a champion who brought hope to an entire culture — one that too often goes ignored.
"I'm really happy to represent a small country," he said. "I want to give them a voice and make sure that whole world can hear them. I finally get the opportunity to."
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."