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While there is something to be said for having the absolute best athlete’s in the world competing for the gold medals at the Olympics, I have to agree with you ChelseaFC. The spirit of the Olympics is to celebrate amateur sport and to give those athletes an opportunity to represent their country.

While I understand from a marketing perspective why it helps the IOC’s bottom line to have Yao Ming playing LeBron James in olympic basketball, I think it does take away from the spirit of the games and results in an unequal playing field. The line between professional athlete and amateur athlete has always been blurred though. Just look at how the Soviet Union won so many medals with their Red Army athletes in the past.

My question in this matter is- how do you define an amateur athlete? Just a young one? Because anybody can get up and say hey, I’m a great athlete, and go to the Olympic qualifiers, but then we’d have way too many people to move around. Next thing you know we’ll have an American-Idol style reality program on Fox called The Next Olympians (or So You Think You Can Throw a Discus).

To be honest I have no idea how Olympic Committee selections are actually made. I agree that amateur players make more sense in the high profile sports, but things like swimming, athletics, and most less-popular sports that people don’t really watch outside of the Olympics it doesn’t make sense not to send professionals (because most people don’t know anybody anyway). And of course you can’t very well make a division between all sports, so I don’t think we should restrict it to amateurs only.