Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

In this past weeks issue of Sports Illustrated there was an excerpt from a new book by David Maraniss on the 1960 Olympics. Reading the excerpt, especially the section on the competition in the Decathlon between my two heroes CK Yang and Rafer Johnson made very nostalgic about the good old days. One thing that I did not know was that the 1960 Olympics were the first Olympics televised internationa
 
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On the flip side, without sponsors and money, the amount of talent able to attend the games would be limited.  Commercialization has allowed many athletes to train and focus solely on their sport. It has given many an opportunity to continue their track careers beyond college and not have to worry about balancing a job and training. I personally look forward to the Olympics and I am in full support of the athletes that worked so hard to earn a spot on the team.

If you are boycotting the olympics are you also against college sports? Many of them are commercialized, especially Football and Basketball. Also, some feel that college athletes are basically commercialized, with scholarships and alumni paying standout athletes’ ways from college to the pros, this takes away their oppurtunity to learn and grow in acollege learning environment, instead they walk around the college like they own the place (which some of them essentially do.)

I disagree.  It is about the athletes.  The sponsorships and money really only benefits them; more publicity, more money, better facilities, better coaches, better competition…

yeah, i have to agree with the all 3 of you guys…the athletes are really benifiting from the money and publicity and i think its great that track and field athletes can make money now on so many different levels…the Olympics is a dream for millions, and now many more athletes have a chance of achieving it…

Any significant boycott of the Olympics only hinders the development of athletes who are, by comparison to most professional athletes, paragons of purity.  The principle here is that time tints everything with rose colored glasses; I’m sure, that in forty years I’ll look at the Olympics and grouse about how they aren’t as pure as they were in 2008, so I’d better enjoy them while I can.