Quote:
Originally Posted by Boblobla
TBQH, I think a political reason for not watching the games is worse than not caring. The olympics are not supposed to be a soap box for every hippy out there to tell the world the evils of China. It is the one time that people are supposed to put that aside and celebrate amateur (for the most part) athletics.
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Please have a look at Olympic Games history, the summer games are very political and very little of it is amateur. The winter games are less political because they are smaller, but they also allow professionals. You'd have to go way back to the 1960 Rome Olympics to find an Olympics that was mostly amateur. Make no mistake about it, the Chinese athletes make a living from their sport and most of the other sports are professional, even something obscure to north americans like fencing is very professional.
Its nice to watch the olympics because of the passion of the competitors and seeing the best in the world compete, however, lets not have any illusions about it being a utopian celebration of amateur sports. In fact the scandals, politics and the bad stuff are also a part of what makes the games so interesting.