Amateurs at the Olympics
I thought the Olympics was for amateurs. Why are Kobe Bryant and others from the NBA playing?
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry on the modern Olympics, the term amateur was removed from the Olympic Charter in 1971. Eligibility rules were changed to allow payments to athletes, and financial sponsorship of athletes. In 1986, the International Olympic Committee adopted a rule stating that the international governing association of each sport must decide whether or not to permit professional athletes in Olympic competition.
Professionals from the NBA began to compete in the Olympics in 1992. From the IOC entry on the history of basketball at the Olympics:
“After another semi-final victory for the Soviets in 1988, the sport opened to professionals. … In Barcelona in 1992, with a squad featuring some of the world’s best-known athletes - Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird - the gold-medal winning US “Dream Team” gave an exhibition of basketball at its best.”
Filed under: Fun Facts
My mother was a public school librarian. I earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Kentucky. The Herald-Leader hired me as a news assistant 25 years ago; soon after, I moved to the news research department, where I’ve been ever since. We used to clip newspapers. Now, almost all of our research is online. We've come a long way.