Kamila Valieva - Olympic Figure Skating

J.Quondam said:

For these reasons and more, the Olympics really lost their shine for me many years ago. The whole mess works much better "in theory" than it does in practice. Which is truly sad, given the idealism that's supposed to underlie the Games.

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éxypnos said:

Yes, X-games should go too. Curling is played by almost no one despite what you wrote. Only 10 countries fielded teams.

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Ryujin said:

For me the tipping point was when professionals started showing up. Especially in hockey.

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Thunderfoot said:

That has, for the most part, disappeared. The problem was back in the day when you had the CCCP their state program could 'consistently' beat the pros from around the world.

Now the only sport that really has pros still competing is Basketball, because unlike other sports, the professional season is played opposite of the actual season. Baseball and Hockey have since stopped allowing pro players to participate. This may change as the NFL is trying to add flag football to the Summer games and has already recieved permission to add it as an exhibition sport in LA 2028, but that remains to be seen.

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Ryujin said:

Up until the 2014 Winter Games, NHL players took part. In 2018 the only reason why they didn't, was a dispute over who paid for what. The reasons why they didn't play this time are fairly widely known (stated reason Covid-19

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Thunderfoot said:

Yeah, except the player's association and the owner's collective wanted to garner exclusive merchandising rights but wanted the individual countries to pay for everything (my personal opinion is COVID was a false flag) I would say it's almost guaranteed that it's over as a thing, but who knows?

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Thunderfoot said:

Only 10 teams 'qualified' big difference

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