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© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.U.S. romps to men's basketball gold, beating Serbia 96-66
By BRIAN MAHONEY RIO DE JANEIRO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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Mocheake
Great job, Team USA! I am also really looking forward to giving the hosts a pounding in 2020
stormcrow
Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when the professional athletes were not allowed to join the Olympic Games. This goes for the other Olympic sports as well like tennis, baseball, etc.
The stress and desire on winning gold medals seems to take something special away from a unique global event which is more about bringing people together every few years.
ThePBot
How come some professional athletes are allowed to compete in the Olympics in certain sports, but not in other sports? Is there some kind of rule for that? Like Olympic boxing for example, although I heard they were allowing pros to join in Rio.
Patrick Hattman
Congratulations, Team USA! 46 golds and 121 medals overall to easily outpace the rest of the field once again. I look forward to another first-place showing from the U.S. in 2020.
lostrune2
It depends on each sport's federation. Like for example, Olympic men's soccer is limited to Under-23 aged players except for 3 over-aged players of the country's choosing.
For boxing, it'd be difficult to bring in pros because they won't want 30-yr-old veteran pros beating up or possibly killing greenhorn teenage boxers. (Plus how would the Olympics boxing qualification work? Pros have to fight a few times per year for a living and cannot just fight at any time, unlike amateur boxers whose schedules revolve around qualifying.)
Other countries have NBA players now too, and they're getting better. Some of the other US games have been close.
I think other countries may take it as an insult that they're not worth facing NBA-caliber players, like they're not good enough to worth it. That actually hurts their pride more.
CrazyJoe
Nothing says amateur sports like sending an NBA all-star team to the Olympics to beat up on other countries. That sound you hear is Jim Thorpe making yet another spin move in his grave -- look it up, kids.