🚀 go-pugleaf

In <10AUG199222593503@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov> packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov
(Charles Packer) writes:

>I've never paid much attention to the Olympics, but
>have always known they are for =amateurs=, no
>professional athletes need apply. Now comes a front
>page story in the NY Times about the "Dream Team"
>of professional basketball players. There was no
>background explanatory material in the story.
>Could somebody bring me up to date on this situation?

Professional athletes have been attending the Olympics for quite some time.
(30 - 40 years?)  You may not have been aware of it because some nations
had become very adept at disquising their professionals as amateurs.

The rules makers have recently decided to let the games catch up with
reality and stop the hypocrisy behind all these suppossedly "amateur"
athletes.  Now the best athletes in the world are allowed to compete,
regardless of how they may make their living.

BTW, the rules for who may compete are different for each sport.  Don't
ask me to explain how or why this is, I don't completely understand it
myself.  Something about there being a different federation for each
sport, and each federation gets to set at least some of its own rules.

-- 
--Mark