The Olympics are now just a commercial shitshow but the precedents for that are more distant.
Russians have always taken excellent care of their athletes and there was argument this constituted making them professional athletes. They had privileges others didn't enjoy but I don't know specifically what they were. I rather doubt they had Maseratis like the glitzy crap pro athletes in the West often buy.
There was further argument of how is it possible for East Germany to win so much gold when it's such a tiny country but how should I know. Maybe they eat a lot of vegetables.
Based on that questionable situation, instead of dealing with it America suggested how's about we make all of them professionals. You can see the clambake results in which the Olympics are now no more representative of the people than the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure how you would resolve the original situation in any sensible and amicable way as maybe that devolves into what amateur athletes get in Communist countries compared with what they get in others. That kind of distasteful measuring is already beyond anything which would come at Olympia but I suspect those athletes were treated quite well after the Games, particularly if they won.
If it were my choice, I would fire all the professional athletes in the Olympics and start again from there. America has relatively strict standards internally as to what constitutes an amateur and there's always cheating but the standard is generally upheld.
My proposal is not that the world should adhere to America's standards on anything when there are abundant reasons it should not. I only need some standard and that one is convenient. If that is used as the baseline and athletes in some other country get better treatment that that, whether physical (i.e. cash) or virtual (i.e. benefits), then that athlete is not an amateur and cannot compete in the Olympics.
Such a mechanism would a gigantic pain in the ass to implement because there's so much cheating even within the country which owns this particular standard. If they're caught they will be busted hard as Americans take sport far more seriously than actual criminal behavior. Nevertheless, there's a lot of cheating.
Russians have always taken excellent care of their athletes and there was argument this constituted making them professional athletes. They had privileges others didn't enjoy but I don't know specifically what they were. I rather doubt they had Maseratis like the glitzy crap pro athletes in the West often buy.
There was further argument of how is it possible for East Germany to win so much gold when it's such a tiny country but how should I know. Maybe they eat a lot of vegetables.
Based on that questionable situation, instead of dealing with it America suggested how's about we make all of them professionals. You can see the clambake results in which the Olympics are now no more representative of the people than the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure how you would resolve the original situation in any sensible and amicable way as maybe that devolves into what amateur athletes get in Communist countries compared with what they get in others. That kind of distasteful measuring is already beyond anything which would come at Olympia but I suspect those athletes were treated quite well after the Games, particularly if they won.
If it were my choice, I would fire all the professional athletes in the Olympics and start again from there. America has relatively strict standards internally as to what constitutes an amateur and there's always cheating but the standard is generally upheld.
My proposal is not that the world should adhere to America's standards on anything when there are abundant reasons it should not. I only need some standard and that one is convenient. If that is used as the baseline and athletes in some other country get better treatment that that, whether physical (i.e. cash) or virtual (i.e. benefits), then that athlete is not an amateur and cannot compete in the Olympics.
Such a mechanism would a gigantic pain in the ass to implement because there's so much cheating even within the country which owns this particular standard. If they're caught they will be busted hard as Americans take sport far more seriously than actual criminal behavior. Nevertheless, there's a lot of cheating.
No comments:
Post a Comment