Pro's in olympics

[Casper250]

When did they start allowing profesional athletes to compeat in the olympics? I know that it's been alowed for a little while but i thought that the olympics were for amature athletes so why did they change the rules?

 

[a454elk]

I think they started that when the basketball came into light. All the European contries were using their pro players, so we decided to also. I may be wrong but I know that other countries already use their pro people for teams.
Elk

 

[singletracker500]

The communist countries don't have pro teams. So their amature athletes were the best their country had to offer. So basically, the countries with pro teams were at a big disadvantage. Imagine your favorite college baseball team up against the Yankees or Diamondbacks in the world series. They wouldn't have much of a chance. So the rules needed to be changed.

 

[oldguy]

I tink alot of the basis also was that many countries fielded teams from their "ARMY" who probably had little military experience but were able to train imeasurable hours. There are still several sports in the Olympics which adhere to the amateuar rules but the bigger team sports such as Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey have officially gone to the pros.

 

[KWJams]

TWO WORDS

--JIM THORPE :mad:

<edit--In 1912, Jim Thorpe won both the Decathlon and Pentathlon in Sweden. Six months later, it was discovered he had played minor league baseball for $2.00 a game. His name was removed from the Olympic record book, but his heroic legacy lives on.

 

[txvintage]

As has been eluded to, many countries from what were former Eastern Bloc nations found ways for their best athletes to be allowed to train full time with professional coaching. In essence, they were being paid to be amature athletes on their national teams.

Personally, I miss seeing the our best non-professional athletes compete, but if the competition is doing it, I don't think anyone should whine about someone elses Pro being better than their Pro.

I also wonder why Major League baseball doesn't give up an all star team to compete against the Cuban National team. They too are paid to be National players. Of course, it was sweet to see our minor league and college players win gold anyway!