Olympic Athletes

I’m sure there is a good reason for this…

In most Olympic sports, professional athletes cannot compete, I believe. In basketball, it seems that they can. Why?

Eligibility rules for individual sports are governed by the respective worldwide organization for each sport. The IOC relaxed it’s amateur-only rules a few years back and started allowing the different governing bodies to set their own rules. Most sports now allow pros and basketball (I believe the organization is “FIBA”) made the decision to allow NBA players to participate.

But basketball isn’t the only one - NHL players were in the last olympics in Nagano and track athletes have technically been pros for many years… I’m not sure about baseball, but I think that baseball is still 100% amateur… Could be wrong.

Pro tennis players have been competing for several olympics, and the distinction between pro- and amateur- in most sports is now effectively nil. The Olympics, for better or for worse, is no long about the best amateur athletes, its about the best athletes overall. Baseball is hampered by the fact that the summer olympic happen during baseball season. This year they will occur in September, effectivly right in the midst of Pennant Races. I doubt that anyone wants to disturb major league pennant races. I do believe that there is no ban on professional ball players, and I have heard that many minor-leaguers will be appearing in this years olympics.

FIFA has strict rules on Olympics participation, so as not to conflict with The World Cup, thus the olympics are in effect a sort of “under 23” world championship.

IIRC the ‘no professionals’ rule was something the United States imposed on its own athletes. The Olympics are about fiding the best athletes in the world and having them compete. From their standpoint they couldn’t give a crap what you do for a living (as long as it’s wholesome…they’d probably frown on things like drug dealing).

Think about it. The USSR fielded athletes who were exclusively professionals. Professional meaning your job is the sport. Russian ice skaters and gymnasts did nothing else but practice for the Olympics. In effect that was their job.

The reason for the switch, from my understanding anyway, is because some people/countries were upset because some countries where paying their athleates to practice even though they technically had other “jobs”. most I believe were in the army etc. If you remember a few years ago when the college body limited practice to 20 hours a week a lot of the swimmers were going to quit because they did more than that. what they wanted was “team” practice was limited to 20 hours a week.

I for one think it’s damn stupid and havent watched or cared about some of the stuff in the olympics such as BAsketball that allow the pros in. There are plenty of College and other players that will never get a chance now. I won’t even watch tennis as much as I like it in the Olympics. It’s a big change from when Jim Thorpe gets his metals taken from him for playing semi-pro baseball years before and running track at the Olympics. I guess I’ll take some of what I said back, if you’re a pro Basketball player then it’s fine by me if you’re a track runner as it’s not the same sport. but that’s just me.

The concept of amateurism was dispensed with in the Olympics because it was a total fraud.

The British thought that competitive athletes should be amateurs. That would ensure that if you went to a track meet, you would be seeing “gentlemen” (i.e. rich people who had other sources of income) competing instead of scruffy “commoners” (who had to work for a living).

Avery Brundage, who headed the USOC and later the IOC, was one of the principal perpetrators of the whole amateur sham in the Olympics. Brundage was rich, very rich. The IOC, which is still pretty upper class now, used to be full of people with inherited titles (lots of Counts and Dukes). The IOC then didn’t give a rat’s ass if the athletes made any money. They had their fortunes and screw the rest.

The 1984 LA Olympics served to drive the final nail in the coffin of amateurism in the Olympics. The last few Olympics before the LA games lost money, but the LA Games turned a huge profit (thanks in part to employing thousands of volunteers who were willing to put in long hours while wearing dorky clothes, like me). There were some overt professionals allowed to compete, especially in soccer. The track and field athletes were allowed to collect “appearance fees” and “expense reimbursements” before competing in the Olympics with no repercussions.

Public opinion and a change in the membership of the IOC finally made everybody wake up and smell the coffee. The Olympics were about athletes. Without athletes, there would be no games. With no games, there is no money.

Also, allowing professionals is supposed to ensure that the best athletes get to compete, not just ones who happened to have rich parents.

I’m sorry this was a bit unfocused. In short, amateurism = fraud; professionalism = reality.

Bob nailed it pretty well. The “amateurs” in the old days were professionals. In many countries, their jobs were basically no-show so they could train all the time (and not just communist countries – Jean-Claude Killy of France was a “customs inspector,” though I doubt he ever opened a tourist’s suitcase in his life). In the U.S., athletes were in college, which did pretty much the same thing.

As has been stated here, “amateurism” in sports was largely a fraud, a way to make sure that rich men didn’t have to rub elbows with the lower classes.

Incidentally, until thrity years ago, WImbledon and the US Open were restricted to “amateurs,” which meant that guys like Rod Laver, who had to earn a living, could not compete there.

I point this out because, as much as I admire Pete Sampras, I remain convinced that ROd Laver would have had far more Grand Slam titles than Pete, if he’d been allowed to play for money.