Look, I get the appeal of seeing the best of the best compete. I really do. Watching pros go head-to-head is exciting. But here's the thing — the Olympics were never meant to be just another pro league. They were supposed to be about something bigger. I've been to Games in different countries, and what always struck me was the diversity. The carpenter from Kenya, the student from Brazil, the teacher from Japan. That's the Olympic spirit. Once you let pros in everywhere, you price out the amateur who trained in their backyard. You kill the underdog story. And you hand the medals to the richest countries with the best-funded sports systems. The NBA players and NHL stars already dominate. Let's keep some events for the true amateurs. That's what makes the Olympics unique.

Isn't it funny how letting pros in is supposed to fix inequality, but it actually makes it worse? You're right that Russia cheats — that's a policing problem, not a reason to scrap the amateur idea entirely. I've watched kids from rural Senegal and small-town India train on dirt fields with zero funding. They dream of the Olympics because it's one of the few stages where sheer grit can sometimes beat a state-funded system. Open every sport to professionals and watch those dreams evaporate. The cash-rich countries will hoard medals like they hoard vaccines. If you want fairness, punish the cheaters. Don't kill the one event where a teacher from Taiwan can still shock the world.

I've traveled through enough developing nations to know that your argument misses the real world entirely. You say it creates fairer competition between wealthy countries — so what about everyone else? I've watched kids in Manila play basketball with a deflated ball and a rusted hoop. They're not competing against each other for medals. They're competing against Germany's Bundesliga system and America's NCAA machine. You're right that the amateur line is blurry. But that's an argument for better enforcement, not for giving up entirely. Open the floodgates and you don't just get Russian military athletes — you get corporate sponsorships, state-funded training centers, and a system where only nations with billion-dollar sports budgets can even dream of gold. The Olympics become a rich country's club. We've already seen that with basketball and hockey. Why would we want more of it?

You're arguing that poor countries are already behind, so why not just let pros in? But I've been to competitions in Southeast Asia and West Africa where I've seen local heroes rise up. A fisherman's son from Ghana who'd never touched a proper track before somehow made the semifinals. That story dies the moment you let every sport go full pro. The real issue is access. When you open everything to professionals, you're basically telling the world that Olympic medals belong to countries with professional leagues. You're creating a closed shop. I've watched kids in rural Colombia train with rocks tied to their feet for resistance. They're not competing against Russia's "military athletes" — they're competing against the idea that they even belong there. Let's fix the cheating, not destroy the dream.