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And this is a symptom of why I am no longer interested in the Olympics. I mainly lost interest when they started allowing professional athletes to compete. Pl

by jmclnx 2y ago

And this is a symptom of why I am no longer interested in the Olympics. I mainly lost interest when they started allowing professional athletes to compete. Plus now, based upon various news items, the IOC is riff with graft and bribery. In the old days, the Olympics was a venue were aspiring athletes got to get a second chance of turning pro, or at the very least a way for them to get recognition for their hard work. Now in many cases, it is now a bunch of multi-millionaires feeding their somewhat narcissistic drives. I won't even go into my belief kids under 18 should not compete in the Olympics.

chidog12 2y ago
"In the old days, the Olympics was a venue were aspiring athletes got to get a second chance of turning pro, or at the very least a way for them to get recognition for their hard work. Now in many cases, it is now a bunch of multi-millionaires feeding their somewhat narcissistic drives." This entire sentence is ridiculous and inaccurate.
- blueflow 2y ago
  What is inaccurate about it
  - hluska 2y ago
    1.) The Olympics have never been a place for a second chance. There are miracles of course and occasionally some low ranked athletes perform well. But for the most part, it’s the best of the best. 2.) Relatively few Olympic sports even have professional leagues that we would think of as professional leagues. 3.) A small number of stars make money. The vast majority make absolutely no money. Instead of trusting a snarky person on the internet, here is a quote from the CEO of the USATF: “Most of our [athletes] make less than $50,000 a year, and for many, much less than that” Or consider that in 2016, ~ 140 athletes had to resort to GoFundMe to pay their costs to attend the Olympics. 4.) They talk about letting professionals in like it was a simple thing. Professionals in the Olympics have been a problem since 1912 when Jim Thorpe had his medals in decathlon and pentathlon stripped because he had played professional baseball. 5.) The way they talk about IOC corruption implies they must have stopped watching the Olympics in 1920. Budapest won the games that year but the France dominated IOC stripped them of it (they had been enemies in World War One) and gave it to Brussels. That’s a start. I can continue if needed.
zem 2y ago
i lost interest when athletes were forbidden to publicly write about their events because that violated some sort of "exclusive media rights" package that had been sold by the olympics. to be fair i was never particularly interested in the first place because i find sports pretty dull, but i used to at least keep up with news about the olympics before that. afterwards i simply stopped paying attention altogether.
thechao 2y ago
Errr.. > https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a37039437/1904-olympic-marathon/ https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a37039437/1904-... And the IOC has been infamously corrupt since I was a kids in the 80s watching the US/SR win/lose in the most ridiculous ways...
- jmclnx 2y ago
  FWIW, I am much older than you :)
  - hluska 2y ago
    How is that appropriate? They didn’t say a thing about their age.
klyrs 2y ago
> multi-millionaires In the 80s this really meant something. Nowadays, that's just table stakes for homeownership.
- matsemann 2y ago
  The average HN commenter is probably way richer than the average Olympian.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Some olympic sports are akin to hobbies, others hardly pay. And most are pretty harsh living compared to effort. Only a select few are actual good income makers. And even then quite likely depend on good marketability and good sponsors.
theshrike79 2y ago
> Now in many cases, it is now a bunch of multi-millionaires feeding their somewhat narcissistic drives I can guarantee you that even all of the athletes in my country don't sum up to multi-millionaire status together :D They all have day jobs.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  I am sure that is true, but we are never shown that. In this country we only get to see sports our athletes are contenders in and only matches they are playing in :( Plus this professionalism mostly lock out countries like yours and small countries from able to compete fairly. Most of the time the pros always win.

by jmclnx 2y ago

chidog12 2y ago

"In the old days, the Olympics was a venue were aspiring athletes got to get a second chance of turning pro, or at the very least a way for them to get recognition for their hard work. Now in many cases, it is now a bunch of multi-millionaires feeding their somewhat narcissistic drives." This entire sentence is ridiculous and inaccurate.

blueflow 2y ago
What is inaccurate about it
- hluska 2y ago
  1.) The Olympics have never been a place for a second chance. There are miracles of course and occasionally some low ranked athletes perform well. But for the most part, it’s the best of the best. 2.) Relatively few Olympic sports even have professional leagues that we would think of as professional leagues. 3.) A small number of stars make money. The vast majority make absolutely no money. Instead of trusting a snarky person on the internet, here is a quote from the CEO of the USATF: “Most of our [athletes] make less than $50,000 a year, and for many, much less than that” Or consider that in 2016, ~ 140 athletes had to resort to GoFundMe to pay their costs to attend the Olympics. 4.) They talk about letting professionals in like it was a simple thing. Professionals in the Olympics have been a problem since 1912 when Jim Thorpe had his medals in decathlon and pentathlon stripped because he had played professional baseball. 5.) The way they talk about IOC corruption implies they must have stopped watching the Olympics in 1920. Budapest won the games that year but the France dominated IOC stripped them of it (they had been enemies in World War One) and gave it to Brussels. That’s a start. I can continue if needed.

zem 2y ago

i lost interest when athletes were forbidden to publicly write about their events because that violated some sort of "exclusive media rights" package that had been sold by the olympics. to be fair i was never particularly interested in the first place because i find sports pretty dull, but i used to at least keep up with news about the olympics before that. afterwards i simply stopped paying attention altogether.

thechao 2y ago

Errr.. > https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a37039437/1904-olympic-marathon/ https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a37039437/1904-... And the IOC has been infamously corrupt since I was a kids in the 80s watching the US/SR win/lose in the most ridiculous ways...

jmclnx 2y ago
FWIW, I am much older than you :)
- hluska 2y ago
  How is that appropriate? They didn’t say a thing about their age.

klyrs 2y ago

> multi-millionaires In the 80s this really meant something. Nowadays, that's just table stakes for homeownership.

matsemann 2y ago
The average HN commenter is probably way richer than the average Olympian.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Some olympic sports are akin to hobbies, others hardly pay. And most are pretty harsh living compared to effort. Only a select few are actual good income makers. And even then quite likely depend on good marketability and good sponsors.

theshrike79 2y ago

> Now in many cases, it is now a bunch of multi-millionaires feeding their somewhat narcissistic drives I can guarantee you that even all of the athletes in my country don't sum up to multi-millionaire status together :D They all have day jobs.

jmclnx 2y ago
I am sure that is true, but we are never shown that. In this country we only get to see sports our athletes are contenders in and only matches they are playing in :( Plus this professionalism mostly lock out countries like yours and small countries from able to compete fairly. Most of the time the pros always win.