IS IT JUST ME?

I have stopped following the summer Olympics now for a few years. It just does not interest me to see professionals playing what should be amateur competition.

I always thought that the Olympics were meant to be competitive, yet representative of a nation’s amateur athletes. That is every country sending their youth to compete and be part of a beautiful thing, international competition. You have no fame, you work hard for years for a particular event, and then one day, your country selects you to represent them on a world stage. In all its significance is the idea that we promote world peace, and embrace the human competitive spirit.

It seems to me that the concept is lost, gone forever with countries trying to prove their superiority by what I see in today’s competition. This started back in the ‘60s with East Germany and the Soviet Union, sending what were really professional athletes to the games to gather as many gold medals as possible to demonstrate to the world just how superior Communism is compared to Capitalism.

The USA, after being denied the opportunity to compete fairly began doing the same thing, sending pro’s to a world competition that should be amateurs only. I see the USA Men’s basketball squad, made up of players from the NBA, and I see the true spirit of international competition thrown out the window. Where exciting college players should be on the hardwood, we have the seasoned pros. This is disturbing to the concept of young players in all the countries all over the world. Because of this idea, the world does not get to see the young and exciting talent that may be out there.

Then there is the need to bring in foreigners to your squad to be competitive. Countries like France and Spain and Argentina, bring in NBA players on their squads for the basketball games, just to try to be competitive, and what we now have is a complete breakdown of the concept of the Olympic games!

I guess we: as humans will never get over the need to dominate each other, to wage a “war” so to speak and destroy everything that was meant to be beautiful.

That’s all I wrote, folks!