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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

This article doesn't say why it matters whether an athlete had previously earned money playing sports. Was it untrue that he had earned money previously? Was that rule not uniformly enforced? TFA doesn't say.

Also, why was he previously considered a co-winner? What does that even mean?

I can't tell from the article why the current result, which appears to be the third, is the correct one. Does anyone else know more about the situation, the rules, and why the current result is the correct one?

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I haven't read the axios article but all the questions you asked were answered in the NYT article I read about it this morning.

* Its not disputed that he did earn money playing minor league baseball for $25/wk a couple years prior to the Olympics.

* The IOC rules stated that he could lose his medals for this, but there's only a 30 day window to enforce the rule. The IOC enforced this rule "the next year." I'm not sure if this was enforced unevenly, but there are insinuations that this was due to his race.

* In 1982, the IOC, under pressure, re-instated him as "Co-winner" of the medals to appease critics. This did not appease them.

Additionally someone was able to talk to the two other “gold medal” winner’s families about their medals beung changed to silver so that Thorpe could be changed to sole gold medal winner. The previous silver and bronze winners retain their medals.

At the time only amateurs were allowed to compete. Taking money made you a professional.

I don’t think there’s any dispute that he did make money as a player. However, the wikipedia page says that disqualifications had to be made within 30 days of the close of the games. His occurred 6 months later. So that sounds like grounds to disqualify the disqualification itself, so to speak. It was invalid under the rules.

Also, I have not seen this as a consideration but it appears an important distinction to me, he made money playing baseball, but entered (and won) the Olympics in track and field, that is, not his professional sport.

>However, the wikipedia page says that disqualifications had to be made within 30 days of the close of the games. His occurred 6 months later. So that sounds like grounds to disqualify the disqualification itself, so to speak.

The question is, if the participating athletes were aware of that rule. If so, then Thorpe willingly broke the rule regardless of whether it was enforced within 6 months or not.

The Olympics were supposed to be for amateurs only, not professional athletes. This is a distinction that disappeared primarily when the Soviets made it nonsensical (as Communism meant a disconnect with what you did and why you were paid), and I remember into the 90's it was discussed when the NBA "Dream Team" was formed for the Olympics.

Why it was so important they be amateurs, I couldn't tell you.

Classicism. It was really so that the upper-classes could keep the working classes out of it. They had their own money, so they could be amateurs and not make money from competition. Where as regular people needed to also make money in sports to just survive.

This seems like the most simple answer where money, power and privilege continue to take every step necessary to restrict leakage.

Is there research that supports this, though? Or even "amateur" analysis of these times and the players and patterns of behavior that indicate rule-making in the IOC with this aim?

There’s a parallel with unpaid internships at elite institutions. Who can afford an unpaid internship?

This has been discussed in startupland as well.

The idea being: founders often come from fairly wealthy circumstances or support structures.

That way, if they fail they can be rescued (~can still move in with mom or dad).

And thus, the wealthy are most at liberty to take risks offering potentially outsized returns without paying the price others might.

This is a key reason why I strongly believe that UBI would be a massive boon to entrepreneurship. If everyone had that sort of safety net, we'd see a lot more startups and a lot more upward socioeconomic mobility.

My understanding is that it was classism. That is, only the "right" people could dedicate themselves to becoming a world-class athlete without any financial support, and they didn't want to complete with the "wrong" people. I think you can see similar in how "prize fight" boxing was initially looked down upon as a corruption of gentlemanly dueling.

(Can't find sources for this right now, sorry. And I'm not even positive I am remembering it correctly. So perhaps take my response with a grain of salt.)

I've read articles to this affect as well.

I have social clubs near me that start at 45,000 a year to join. (You're required to spend a lot of money). Men only up until somewhat recently.

Basically golf/tennis and dining for rich folks or people they are trying to impress. Got invited a lot when I would work directly with fortune 100 CEO's. Was both fun and educational.

Interesting to meet board members of companies I loved / hated.

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