olympics question

Dylan W.

Dylan W.

lone resident of Bro-Lite Island
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Location
Mocksville NC
My wife just asked me about being a pro and competing in the olympics. She said she did'nt think pros could compete, but was confuse because the US basketball team was all pros.

I dont know what to tell her, cause, hell. I dont know either.
 
The olympics can best be compared to NASCAR nowadays. The IOC has changed greatly in attitude and aspirations in the past 30 years. What better way to make cash (for the Int'l Olympic Committee members) than to trademark the name and logo, then sell rights to them, along with making everybody pay their own way (host cities and athletes).

About the only Olympic sport that hasn't had pro athletes (so far) is rowing.
 
Funny, I looked this up this morning.
See the "Olympics" section here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_sports

Originally, yes, you could not be a progfessional athlete.
Problems started coming up in how you define a "profesisonal". Does that mean they can't receive money from anybody for anything teh do? What about sponsorships? Got to where "ametures" were being paid large amounts of $$ by sponsors to wear their clothing etc.... "students" who actually spend full time training and such... so in '88, the IOC finally said to hell w/ it, we'll let them into selected sports, then next round ('92) they let them into any sports.

Looks at the F-ing "Dream Team". Hardly a fair fight, lol.
 
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