The original objective was to allow non-professional athletes to compete against each other. At the time, amateurs really had no chance against paid competition in sports like athletics, rowing, archery and so forth. The Olympics were set up to allow amateurs from different nations to have their own competition separate from professional competition.

The original objective was to allow non-professional athletes to compete against each other. At the time, amateurs really had no chance against paid competition in sports like athletics, rowing, archery and so forth. The Olympics were set up to allow amateurs from different nations to have their own competition separate from professional competition. Now? It’s hard to say. From the beginning, the games had problems with “professionalism” which generally meant they were only for the wealthy. In order to stay competitive without making money, athletes always had to skirt some of the rules, like having paid coaches. The real downfall came in 1952 when the IOC bent the rules a lot to let the USSR compete. Soviet and Eastern Bloc athletes technically didn’t get paid to compete, but they often had “no show” jobs so they got paid to train. The costs of training and travel became so oppressive that athletes had to set up trusts to pay their expenses without technically being “paid” to train.