name of amateurism, beginning with the fate of Jim Thorpe, ‘the greatest athlete in the world’. In effect, the strict imposition of the amateur code conferred an advantage on wealthy individuals with private incomes whose training did not have to be interrupted by anything as tiresome as work, like Lord Burghley. The problem became much worse after the 1948 London Games with the entry to the Olympics of Soviet bloc athletes who were professionals in all but name but whose presence was tolerated on pragmatic grounds – the games would have lacked credibility without them. The Americans responded with sports scholarships and the situation remained rife with hypocrisy until 1986 when the requirement for amateur status was removed from the Olympic Charter though certain restrictions remained on professional boxers and wrestlers.
