Agreed. I love the idea of the Olympics, but the majority of these athletes seem to have to rely on sponsorships to make a living despite their rigorous, continued training. Sometimes sponsorships by companies whose products are more harmful than healthy. Sometimes this only amounts to a few thousand a year.

After banning employees from promoting the event through status updates, Instagram posts and effectively killing all other advertising with the "it's again the TOS to link to us unless you're spinning us in a positive light" thing they just pulled a few weeks ago, I'm over the entire thing before it even began.

The idea behind the Olympics games is that you wouldn't win huge prizes or gain a lot of money, because you are an amateur who is naturally gifted with skill in your sport. It shouldn't be rigorous, continued training, it shouldn't be for the glory of the nation, it shouldn't define an athlete.

The Olympic games is no different from Christmas: there were good intentions when it was started, but it has devolved into commercialism and a bastardization of what the original spirit was.

Ideally, yes. I'm not saying that we should award physical capability with hoards of cash as an incentive (although in sports entertainment we do), but to have a shot at being on the podium at these levels, competing against people that are doping, you need multiple coaches, nutritionists and physicians to ensure your health and safety and that doesn't come cheap on top of general living and travel expenses.

That's the argument I'm getting at. If it takes money to get into the Olympics, the Games have already been lost.

The original spirit was a few Greek men running around naked to show that they were racially superior to all other peoples.

The rest of the Olympic 'traditions' were invented at the 1936 games for not-dissimilar reasons.

Crass commercialisation is probably the "nice side" of the olympics.

> the majority of these athletes seem to have to rely on sponsorships to make a living despite their rigorous, continued training.

The way I see it, an overwhelming majority of sports showcased at the Olympics are not watched or cared about at all outside of the Olympics. Who's going to be following the hurdles in three weeks time? Not enough people for a hurdler to make a living I suspect.

Most athletes have day jobs outside of the Olympics training season. For most Olympic athletes, especially those outside of marquee sports like swimming or gymnastics, the only sponsorhip money they will ever see if the money they get during the 3-4 months of Olympic hysteria. These sponsorships are not usually in the six figures.

They take on sponsorships while training so that they can afford to take breaks from their normal jobs to train (though a few employers, such as the HomeDepot, actively recruit Olympians and provide generous training allowances).

I think you mean 12th Century.

Elected leaders of major democratic nations bending over to do what the divinely appointed leaders of a bunch of steroid cases say