| 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. |