„Early days“ is until 1990 in that case, which is surprisingly late. Some nations got around the ban by employing the athletes as soldiers and allowing them to prepare almost full time though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and...

The US Army still does that through the World Class Athletic Program. It's an effective recruiting and morale program.

https://www.armywcap.com/

Thanks for the link, this made me chuckle:

There was also a prevailing concept of fairness, in which practising or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[176] Those who practised a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[176]

Yes it was originally, but now you gotta have the money and time to pursue that sport at a professional level if you want to have any chance of even getting into the Olympics.

Personally I think it would be better if it was just regular joes doing the Olympics again, but state political interests kept dipping their hand into the pool to try and secure wins for some dubious political points.

Hmm I've never thought of any Olympic victory as being attributed in part to like, the current President, and I'd be surprised if anyone thought that would be the case. But it's not dubious that Americans (including myself) love to see our country winning things, and if we suddenly started tanking at the Olympics most of us would want our country to get our act together.

Of all the things the state does having national pride in competition does not seem nefarious to me. I also love it when we win the various math/science olympiads. Means our country is still a powerhouse across the board.

This is much more an autocratic country thing. Or small countries trying to promote themselves on the world stage, usually by picking a particular event and focusing on it.

Everyone's already heard of America, they don't need the marketing.

Jamaican bobsled team is basically the nation state sponsored-ish equivalent of that guy from one of the plains states that won a bunch of medals in downhill skiing a few years back.