Caitlin Clark’s Olympic ‘snub’ reminds us the best athletes used to be banned

One of the most covered stories about the upcoming Olympics is who’s not competing in Paris. WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark has been left off the Team USA roster in favor of more veteran talent, like A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi.

But a generation ago, none of these women would have been allowed to compete at the Olympics. Neither would Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Jayson Tatum and the rest of the men’s team. Nor would golfers Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy.

These athletes are paid professionals and it wasn’t long ago the Olympics barred pro athletes from participating. 

The age of amateurism

When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formed in 1894 to bring back the Olympic Games, it built the modern foundation on amateurism, a word derived from the Latin word for “lover.” The argument was that amateur athletes competed for the love of the sport, not money. 

Former IOC President Avery Brundage claimed the “amateur code” prevented the Olympics from being “used by individuals, organizations or nations for ulterior motives.” Leaders of the Olympic movement would point back to the tradition of the ancient Games but the concept of amateurism was somewhat of a misnomer. 

“They weren’t amateurs, they were supported in their training,” Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. “If they won, even in the ancient Games, they’d never have to pay for a drink again for the rest of their lives.”

For Wallechinsky, Olympic fandom was in his blood. His father, author Irving Wallace, brought him to the 1960 Rome Olympics when Wallechinsky was 12 years old.

“I got to see the opening ceremony, a couple of events, and so I became hooked,” Wallechinsky said. “I wanted to read a book that had all the results and all the best stories and it didn’t exist. So I spent 2.5 years creating it.”

In 1984, Wallechinsky published the first edition of “The Complete Book of the Olympics,” which has served as a favorite reference book on the subject ever since.

Jim Thorpe’s amateurism controversy

Jim Thorpe, considered one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, is a prime example of the problem with amateurism. Thorpe swept gold in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in the decathlon and pentathlon, becoming the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal.

Then in 1913, the IOC took away his medals for having previously played two summers of semi-pro baseball. Many other Olympic athletes had also played semi-pro baseball but weren’t penalized because they played under fake names. Thorpe’s crime was using his real name. 

The athletes and host countries awarded gold in Thorpe’s place never accepted the results, insisting that Thorpe was the sole winner of these events.

The IOC eventually righted this wrong, reinstating Thorpe’s gold medals 70 years later and listing him as a co-winner. But he never lived to see that day as it happened decades after his death. It wasn’t until 110 years after the Olympics in question that he was reinstated as the sole winner of the decathlon and pentathlon.

Cheating the amateur code

Thorpe’s situation did not compel the IOC to ditch amateurism. The case to eventually allow professional athletes into the Olympics stretched for decades and involved nations continuing to skirt the rules.

The Soviet Union was one of the main offenders. Its athletes were state-sponsored and trained full time, despite claiming to be amateurs. Meanwhile, countries that followed the rules could only present students or true amateur athletes to compete against de facto professional athletes. The Soviet screen came to a head in the hockey rink, where they dominated against Canada and everyone else.

“Canada got really angry,” Wallechinsky said. “‘We’re the best country in the world at ice hockey, we’re sending amateurs and the Soviet Union is sending professionals.'”

The Canadian hockey team even boycotted the ’72 and ’76 Olympics over it. Then in 1980, the U.S. had its miracle on ice, beating those Soviet professionals with an amateur team.   

“Finally, the IOC, sport by sport, went, ‘Okay, you can make money at the Olympics and still be in the Olympics,'” Wallechinsky said.

The Dream Team

The Dream Team marked the true death of amateurism in the Olympics. The 1992 Barcelona Games marked the first time NBA players could play in the Olympics and they did it with arguably the greatest sports team — of any sport — ever assembled. 

The team included basketball greats Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley. They won all eight games by an average of 44 points and coach Chuck Daly never called a single timeout.

The Dream Team helped grow the NBA’s popularity on a global stage. Three decades later, the WNBA is getting its moment. 

With or without Caitlin Clark, in Paris, Team USA will strive for its eighth straight win, which would break the record for the most consecutive Olympic team victories in all Olympic sports. The women haven’t lost an Olympic game since 1992.