So are these athletes amateurs or what? What's the definition? Sure a lot of our athletes (and others around the world) have to work a regular job and train for their sport in their spare time. Others accept significant (well maybe not in Canadian olympians' cases) public funding to train and participate in competition. Some have private sponsorship and endorsement deals (I heard, but have no link, that Michael Phelps is getting $5M a year). Then there are the professional athletes (think hockey in the winter olympics and even Chris "Good Times" Reitsma in the summer).
Guess the point is if these athletes truly were amateurs in every sense of the word I would feel hesitant to give them too much grief. On the other hand, if they're walking down that professional or semi-professional path then I don't see what the big deal is getting on their case a bit for poor performances.
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