Question about Olympics re: amateur vs professional?

Question

I have always heard that in order to compete in the Olympics you have to be an "amatuer' athlete, and figure skaters for example, have to keep that status as long as they want to compete. But hockey players on olympic teams are all from the nhl, they are profesionals, so what is the deal?

Answer 1

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are those in which athletes receive payment for their performance. While men have competed as professional athletes throughout much of modern history, only recently has it become common for women to have the opportunity to become professional athletes. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make athleticism their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skill, physical condition and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports.

Until the late 20th century the Olympic Games nominally only accepted amateur athletes. However, successful Olympians from Western countries often had endorsement contracts from sponsors. Complex rules involving the payment of the athlete's earnings into trust funds rather than directly to the athletes themselves, were developed in an attempt to work around this issue, but the intellectual evasion involved was considered embarrassing to the Olympic movement and the key Olympic sports by some. In the same era, the nations of the Communist bloc entered teams of Olympians who were all nominally students or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full time basis. In 1982 Adidas was paying British Olympic athletes to wear their gear. The main person involved in the scandal was Seeman McGee. The first Olympics to officially accept professional athletes was 1988 in selected sports and 1992 in the remainder.

Answer 2

You are correct that the Olympics used to be for amateurs only. Unfortunately, the whole concept of amateurism was flawed and disingenuous.

The modern Olympics were restarted by Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat in the late 1800's. France got spanked in the Franco-Prussian War, and de Coubertin wanted to toughen up the French. This made sense. The ancient Olympic featured combat events: running, wrestling, spear throwing, etc.

But being an aristocrat, de Coubertin recoiled at the idea of well-to-do society members getting shown up by commoners. He knew his upper-crust brothers had no chance in rowing against real rowers (commonly used in shipping back then), runners had no chance against couriers, etc. So he concocted the concept of amateurism: If you get paid to do it, you're a professional, tainted, and corrupted. But if you do it on your own, you're an amateur and somehow untainted and pure. Nevermind that the ancient Greek soldiers were professionals; de Coubertin had higher society to protect.

That's the system that stayed in place through the late-1980's. The Soviet Bloc countries (Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, etc.) enlisted their great athletes into the Army and trained full-time. The American Olympians often worked full-time jobs while training. In lesser-known sports, they also had to beg for funds for facilities and travel. Avery Brundage, the Int'l Olympic Committee (IOC)President from 1952 to 1972, allowed this to continue because he was more concerned with keeping the Soviet Bloc happy that instituting fairness in the Olympics.

As a result, Olympic amateurism rules made no sense whatsoever. The rule of thumb was if you received anything other than money, you were an amateur. It was OK for a figure skater to get hours of free rink time but not OK to receive $5 for lunch. American boxers usually appeared in only Olympics while Cuban Teofilo Stevenson appeared in 3. After winning gold, one Finnish runner was believed to have been given a huge job promotion (something like police officer to region commander) and given his own island. Thus, some countries were rewarded for circumventing the rules while others, particularly the U.S., were penalized for being honest.

I think around 1990 the IOC allowed each sport's governing body to decide who was an amateur. Some upheld the old rules, some let everyone in, and others had very odd rules. The most peculiar was ice hockey, which, for the 1992 Winter Games, declared that anyone under the age of 23 was an amateur and anyone 23 or older was a professional.

Shortly after that the sham of amateurism finally fell and the Olympics are now open to everyone. The only shame is it took a whole century to dump it.

Answer 3

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RE:
Question about Olympics re: amateur vs professional?
I have always heard that in order to compete in the Olympics you have to be an "amatuer' athlete, and figure skaters for example, have to keep that status as long as they want to compete. But hockey players on olympic teams are all from the nhl, they are profesionals, so what is the deal?

Answer 4

Amatuer Athlete

Answer 5

do u think this coming Olympics in south Korea is to risky to send NHLers too?

Answer 6

That stopped in '88 when the USA basketball team was allowed to play the pros therefore becoming the dream team.