Olympics questions and opinions!

[CubanGuyNYC]

You get paid big for winning gold and decent for silver.. (more than most fighters would for a fight) and get decent pay for bronze

Payment for winning Olympic medals varies by country.

The United States Olympic Committee pays its medal winners $25,000 to gold medal winners, $15,000 to those who take home a silver and $10,000 for a bronze. Some of the richer U.S. sport federations give additional prize money to their winners as well. (Wikianswers)

Assuming the above information is correct, I don't think too many professional boxers would consider winning an Olympic medal, even gold, financially rewarding.

[frosty-g]

I don't want to see pro's in 'amateur' boxing. Why can't people get into their thick skulls that AM boxing is a different entity to the pro game?

and that in itself is a reason why pro's don't compete in it - it's technically a different sport.

[CubanGuyNYC]

Frankly, I'd rather see the Olympics go back to being strictly amateur. The sight of a basketball superstar like Kobe Bryant kissing his Olympic gold medal makes me sick. As if these pro ballplayers didn't have enough going for them, they find it amusing to kick the butts of athletes who don't even play their sport full-time.
Yesterday, the United States vaporized Nigeria 156-73. It's not embarrassing to lose that way; it's embarrassing to win that way. The pros have their championships, which determine who is truly the best. They have their mind-boggling contracts and ultra-lucrative endorsements. The amateurs had the Olympics, which used to determine which were the best amateur athletes in the world. An Olympic gold medal was the greatest thing many of these amateurs aspired to. Now they can’t even have that.

But while it's farcical to have superstar pros compete with part-time basketball players, it's downright dangerous to have the best professional boxers compete with amateurs. Can you imagine Manny Pacquiao versus an eighteen year-old from, say, Namibia? The scoring system wouldn't matter. Fights between top pros and amateurs wouldn't last three rounds.

[SERVILEV]

Frankly, I'd rather see the Olympics go back to being strictly amateur. The sight of a basketball superstar like Kobe Bryant kissing his Olympic gold medal makes me sick. As if these pro ballplayers didn't have enough going for them, they find it amusing to kick the butts of athletes who don't even play their sport full-time.
Yesterday, the United States vaporized Nigeria 156-73. It's not embarrassing to lose that way; it's embarrassing to win that way. The pros have their championships, which determine who is truly the best. They have their mind-boggling contracts and ultra-lucrative endorsements. The amateurs had the Olympics, which used to determine which were the best amateur athletes in the world. An Olympic gold medal was the greatest thing many of these amateurs aspired to. Now they can’t even have that.

But while it's farcical to have superstar pros compete with part-time basketball players, it's downright dangerous to have the best professional boxers compete with amateurs. Can you imagine Manny Pacquiao versus an eighteen year-old from, say, Namibia? The scoring system wouldn't matter. Fights between top pros and amateurs wouldn't last three rounds.

This i agree with! NO PROS IN ANY EVENT THATS USES A BALL OR PHYSICAL CONTACT.
The olympics should be fair. If pro boxers fought in the olympics i wouldnt expect them to fight amateurs. Only the best from other countries. As far as monies go. Yes Americans do get paid for the medals. But they also pay a ridiculously high tax for them aswell! Which is sickening to me.

[gingerbreadman]

OMG you just brought up Rios-Abril, that automatically makes all the robberies in the past 2 days "too close" to be robberies

And look another brit giving the nod to the brits in obvious robberies

But ill also include the Gausha, the Bogdan Juratoni, the Ali Mazaheri, the Khytrov, the Satoshi Shimizu and the The joshua robberies all withen a 2 day period. Thats 6 obvious robberies in 2 days

I was merely using Rios-Abril as an example. If you want something else, then I would categorise something as a 1-2 point fight as something that doesn't necessarily qualify as a robbery.

As such, I don't consider Gausha, Ogogo or Joshua as "robberies". The Shimizu fight, which was a robbery, was overturned. That leaves Juratoni and Mazaheri, making two. I don't know whether appeals were lodged by their countries, but I would suspect that given that AIBA have shown their willingness to have bad decisions overturned, that if they had they would be heard.

And please note that I am not "another brit giving the nod to the brits"; I clearly said that I thought Joshua and Ogogo lost their fights. Don't make points because of nationalistically based agendas. I notice you have a large picture of Lomachenko in your sig, and you come from Central Europe. Does that mean I should ignore what you have to say? No.

[hammerhiem]

6 Robberies in 2 day.... 3 of which where very close fights in how many bouts?

As for the Brits results, crowds effect scoring in the Pro's as much as the AM's there are 10's of thousands of rabid Brits screaming for the home team it's going to have an effect.