Syracuse

"If the IOC finds out about this, all of you will be declared professionals" : the professionalization of Finnish track ahtletes from the 1960s to 1980s / Jouni Lavikainen

Lavikainen, Jouvi

For most of the twentieth century a characteristic feature of international athletics was the association of 'shamateurism' with elite athletes. The amateur rules of the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations ushered professionally motivated athletes towards under-the-table payments of gate and sponsor money, ostensible jobs, and tax avoidance. After the deterioration of Olympic amateurism in the 1970s and 1980s, professionalism was finally accepted at the turn of the 1990s. This paper contributes to the understanding of the professionalization of athletics by tracing career paths of Finnish athletes in the last decades of the amateur age.

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