Quote:
Originally Posted by JiriHrdina
My tax dollars are going towards their development - your damn right they owe me something. Even as a fan they owe me something. This is sports, not elementary school recess.
If they want us to care - they have to take the criticism along with the praise.
In short - they need to suck it up. No sympathy from me. No one made them become olympic athletes.
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I agree with your sentiments for the most part.
I think it's telling that the funding debate only comes up every two years when either the summer or winter olympics rolls around. In between those events, no one talks about and no one seems to care.
Deep down I think I'm jealous of olympic athletes. I'm convinced that if I had the opportunity to try something like fencing or equestrian when I was young and had the resources to practice and really pursue those events, I could have been an olympic caliber athlete. Well, at least as good as the ones that we field. But I didn't have that funding and I didn't have those opportunities so now I'm sitting here in Calgary not winning a medal instead of sitting in Beijing and not winning a medal.
Do I feel bad about our olympic athletes (maybe not our hockey team) having to refinance their house so they can afford to practice their sport? Honestly? Not really. I'd prefer to see more athletes have to work a regular job and practice their events in their spare time like many of Canada's athletes claim to do. At least, I'd much prefer that to what seems to be becoming the norm with the rest of the world. USA, China, etc. all seem to fund athletes so they need do nothing else but train and compete around the world. They're basically being paid to play. That's not really amateur athletics, my friends.