I wanted to understand why the arts were dropped from the Olympics. "In 1949, a report was presented at the IOC meeting in Rome which concluded that practicall

I wanted to understand why the arts were dropped from the Olympics. "In 1949, a report was presented at the IOC meeting in Rome which concluded that practically all contestants in the art competitions were professionals, and that the competitions should therefore be abolished and replaced with an exhibition without awards or medals" "At a 1951 meeting, the IOC decided to reinstate the competitions for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki" "The issue continued to be debated within the Olympic Movement, and at the 49th IOC Session in Athens, 1954, the IOC members voted to replace the art contests with an exhibition for future Olympics" "The IOC officially began allowing professional athletes to compete in the Olypmic Games in 1988, basically leaving it up to the individual sporting federations to decide if they would permit it" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_Summer... http://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/14378/why-are-professional-athletes-allowed-to-compete-in-the-olympic-games http://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/14378/why-are-prof...