Wilson: Professional athletes add to Olympic competition

When I began watching this summer’s London Olympics, I was drawn to the team sports. However,…When I began watching this summer’s London Olympics, I was drawn to the team sports. However, I soon realized that it wasn’t so much the team sports aspect that attracted me, but rather the talented athletes whose names I already recognized: the professionals.

The Olympic creed reads: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.”

But this romanticized idea no longer fits into the scheme of the Games, if it ever did, which brought athletes from 204 countries to the United Kingdom from July 27 to Aug. 12.

Look no further than the conclusion of the breathtaking semi-final women’s soccer match between the United States and Canada. The Canadians led until the very end of the 4-3 overtime thriller, and seeing the shared looks of emptiness on the players’ faces, you knew that they weren’t satisfied with just having competed and obtained a chance to win a bronze medal.

They wanted to beat their rivals. They wanted a shot to win a gold medal.

The idealized Olympic Games don’t exist. While the modern Olympics began as an amateur competition, such a setup doesn’t make sense now. Wrestlers and boxers are the only amateurs who compete in the games currently; everyone else is allowed to be a professional.

Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade, who played for the underwhelming bronze medal team in Athens in 2004 and then the dominant American men’s basketball team in Beijing fours year ago, sparked controversy when he suggested that NBA players should get paid for competing in the Olympics. Given his success at the Games, you would think he knows that Olympic athletes do receive compensation, but only if they win.

The United States Olympic Committee awards $25,000 to athletes who win gold at the Olympics, with silver and bronze medal winners collecting $15,000 and $10,000, respectively. Then again, the money Wade received for his part in winning both medals must seem like pocket change to multi-millionaires like himself.

Regardless of the debate about whether Olympians should receive pay, there’s no denying that professional athletes gave us some of the most memorable moments of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The men’s tennis gold medal match pitted Switzerland’s Roger Federer against Great Britain’s Andy Murray in a rematch of an epic Wimbledon final less than one month prior to the Games. This time, Murray won with relative ease, sending a nation craving a legitimate tennis star into a frenzy.

However, American Serena Williams put that celebration to shame. After winning her women’s tennis gold medal match against Maria Sharapova of Russia in dominating fashion, the Compton, Calif., native performed a dance move that originated in her hometown called the “crip walk” to the pleasure of the British crowd.

The victory completed the “golden slam” for Williams, meaning she had won all four major tournaments (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open) and an Olympic gold medal.

Even if they are professionals, such emotion from both Murray and Williams reaffirms how important the Olympics are to these athletes. It’s not just another title to add to the collection — it is a unique distinction that can only be won every four years.

In women’s soccer, 70,584 fans saw team Great Britain face Brazil at the famous Wembley Stadium in a group-stage contest, making it the largest crowd to ever see a women’s soccer game in the United Kingdom and the third largest ever in history.

In men’s soccer, under-23 squads participated with the exception of three over-age players. Despite the relative youth of the under-23 players, all of them earn money for professional sides, and because of the high level of play, the tournament drew about 1.5 million spectators over the 30 matches before Mexico eventually won gold.

Professional athletes competing in the Olympics began only recently, when the United States men’s basketball team validated the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to allow professionals at the Games in 1992. Dubbed the “Dream Team” because of its astonishing collection of talent (11 Hall of Famers), that team’s performance at the Games in Barcelona deserves much of the credit for the subsequent growth of basketball internationally. And growing sports across the world has always been one of the overarching goals of the Olympics.

Ice hockey at the Winter Games is a comparable sport, as since 1998 it has become the domain of professionals. As a result, no event at the Winter Olympics is more anticipated than the men’s ice hockey final.

It’s been 20 years since professionals first competed at the world’s biggest sporting event, and if the IOC knows what a vital role these professionals have in making the games everlastingly relevant, it will do everything in its power to keep from losing the pros. If the Olympics were comprised of all amateurs, there would be way too many Olympians just happy to be there, and the level of competition and entertainment would drop significantly.

After all, when we tune in every four years to watch the very best athletes in the world compete, we want to know that they are indeed the very best athletes in the world.

Even if it is on a tape delay.