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Comment by TomK32 | Hacker News Reader

Ahhh, no. No! NO!

The Olympics as envisioned by Coubertin didn't allow professionals for a very long time, A VERY LONG TIME. For boxers this year is actually the first Olympics that do accept professionals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_p...

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Curiously, every single soviet sports athlete who ever competed on any international event was considered an amateur, while in fact being a full time professional devoted to his sport.

Usually they were officially 'working' at some factory, but were members of a sports club and received a substantial stipend, never doing any work but training and competing. This practice still lives in Russia. The income of any Olympics team russian athlete is estimated to be no less than 5-7k USD, generally coming in the form of several grants and stipends.

It's the same for most countries, Germany has the Sportsoldat, employed by the military (and even more employed by the police) and they make up the majority of the German Olympic team. Not everyone likes this in Germany, but there's not much of an alternative in sight. The American U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program is tiny compared to the German practise.

This sounds rather idealistic and doesn't represent the reality, particularly for this female cycling race! The top competitors of Anna Kiesenhofer had professional contracts!

Yes, but this is a huge part of the history of the Olympics. The Dream Team in 1992, athletes who worked for their governments (and just trained full-time) in the 70s, athletes living an impoverished life for years while chasing their Olympic dreams (see Steve Prefontaine working as a bartender).

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