The Winter Olympics are full of entitlement and leisure class athletes

[superpatriotman]

Clearly there are exceptions, but almost to a person, every competitor is a wealthy silver-spooner.

At least the Summer games provide some sports for those not born or privilege.

Prove me wrong.

[JT45242]

1. Biathlon and x country skiingis often military or ex military from cold places

Hockey outside the US is not a privilege sport as many club teams hand down equipment.

But figure skating, snow boarding, bobsled, etc take huge bucks either from the person or the government.

[sir pball]

3. I would hardly call downhill sports (snowboarding/skiing) "elitist".

No, they aren't "buy a basketball and go to the city court" cheap by any means, but they're hardly polo or motorsports or yacht racing…plenty of non-millionaires hit the slopes every winter

Now, to get to an Olympic level is a different story, it does take a hefty chunk of change to have the free time and coaching infrastructure for that, but the same applies to any sport, right down to running or ping-pong.

[JT45242]

7. Day passes at skiing resorts are crazy expensive...throw in gear

Like golf...you have to look at how much u have to pay to practice to get good.

Then there is all the travel costs if you live outside the rocky mountain area

[sir pball]

11. It certainly does not need to be that expensive.

Day passes are…yes, they are wildly overpriced, but nobody who's serious, about getting good or just having fun, buys one. Season passes are a MUCH better deal, a weekday pass at Sugarloaf in Maine is $769. Not dirt cheap, but not unaffordable for a lot of people. Gear is a non-issue unless you have to have the newest, shiniest toys…I have a perfectly serviceable set of used boots and skis that I got for

[PJMcK]

2. Agreed

I stopped watching the Olympics years ago. They are all professional athletes because they have to be in order to survive and train. That commercialism doesn’t interest me.

Further, the organizers almost always fail spectacularly from a financial perspective. Too often, the expensive infrastructure becomes a waste once the Games are over.

Just my opinion.

[rampartd]

4. the nordic skiing events generally highlight warfare skills

the biathlon more so, perhaps the ski jump less.

[edhopper]

5. You probably have to be at least

Middle Class to pursue most of these sports.
But so what? They are dedicated athletes who put their whole life into being as good as they can be.
And for the most part, most will never get rich doing it. All those athletes fro all those countries are there to compete.
Why does their background matter?

And you don't need to be privileged to Curl.

[sir pball]

12. Realistically you have to be middle class to pursue any non-major-league sport.

Yes, if you're good at one of the big pro-league sports (e.g. basketball/baseball/football) you can get the support you need without having to pay via the HS->college->pro pipeline, but for pretty much any other sport you need to have the resources to make training an unpaid (or worse yet, a paying-for) full-time job. It takes just as much time and effort to be a good runner or tennis player, but in a bit of a paradox, you can't make a living off of it until you've proven yourself top-tier, on your own time and your own dime.

[BannonsLiver]

6. And? So what?

[oberle]

8. Is there a rule that all sports

have to include everyone?

[MineralMan]

9. Then I Suggest You Not Watch the Winter Olympics.

Simple, eh?

[electric_blue68]

30. Snort!

[mysteryowl]

10. Where are you getting this information?

[obamanut2012]

13. You are wrong, on both counts

[Johonny]

14. For years it was design to keep the working class

From competing...

[tinrobot]

15. Curling is expensive? Speed skating? Hockey?

Plenty of winter sports that don't require figure-skating levels of income to compete.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. Hockey is definitely expensive.

[sir pball]

26. Yes, it's a couple of thousands of dollars a year.

Which isn't "cheap", not like bringing a basketball down to the city court or taking a soccer ball to the city field.

But in terms of equipment-intensive sports…I know a few hockey moms, it's in the 1-3k a year tier. No, not low-income affordable, but a dedicated lower middle class family (the girl I got that number from works at a grocery store) it's not out of reach.

Skiing is about the same, going with a weekday season pass to a local resort and used gear it's roughly the same.

Neither are things low income folx can do, for sure (which is probably why the HS->college->NFL/NBA pipeline is so appealing) but they're hardly sports that need a five-figure investment.

[themaguffin]

16. Ok

[Celerity]

17. Disagree. nt

[Deep State Witch]

18. Bryan Sosoo - Bobsled

From my town, Laurel, MD. At least middle class - enough to go to college on a track scholarship.

https://www.teamusa.com/profiles/bryan-sosoo

Bryan Sosoo grew up in Laurel, Maryland, and in high school was the Maryland state champ in the 55-meter and triple jump. Sosoo attended Monmouth University, where he set the school record and won three conference titles in the 60m.

After graduation, Sosoo continued his track and field career, competing internationally for Ghana until 2024, when he made the switch to bobsled and joined the U.S. national team.

Sosoo would make his IBSF World Cup debut to begin the 2025-26 season and would be named to his first Olympic team for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

[Igel]

19. Ah. I'm happy to find out that Simon Biles was born into the lap of luxury.

Born with a silver spoon leading to her bourgeois and upper-crust early life.

Really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Biles

Serena and Venus Williams started off in Lynnwood, CA--not exactly Holmby Hills. Their father was a tennis player and coach, and his family were sharecroppers. Truly the Rockefellers and Pritzkers there. Can't get a more privileged upbringing than that. Except for the wise move to upscale Compton. Their achievements came from inborn ability, skills resulting from training and practice--and that took investment of time, effort, and a lot of money. Can't watch a youtube video or read "The Inner Game of Tennis" bought used for that.

How's this? Let's have top NFL, NBA, NHL athletes--as well as Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and other singers--work 40+ hours a week in working class jobs. Bad Bunny can run an excavator. Taylor Swift, she can be a high school music teacher. Billy Eilish can be a greeter at Walmart or something. The athletes? They can go and coach high school or middle school, full time jobs + a lot of extra time in after school practice and on weekends. Granted, in TX they get June off, but practice resumes in July (same for things like band).

You want to be a top athlete, your job is training to be an athlete. You are a top athlete, your job is to continue to train to be at the top of your game. Maybe you get paid; maybe you get sponsorships; maybe you do what a lot of kids do to break into the field, you bust your butt in hopes of a payday. Dak Prescott may have been born wealthy or not, but to keep in shape for what he does requires time that a 40-hour plus a week job, with the usual dropping of kids off and picking them up, doing dishes and vacuuming and mowing the yard just wouldn't allow.

Does he deserve his multi-million dollar contract? From a strict $/hr perspective, no. His pay isn't retirement benefits or stock options or such, it's just pay. Yet few complain about Billy Eilish or that Bad Bunny's stashed maybe $100 million away. Most working-class 31-year-old Joes don't have that kind of reserve.

Without that training, I want to see Sunday football feature South High's football team versus North this week (Eugene, OR), Grand Oaks versus Woodlands next week (TX) because the standard of play wouldn't be much better than that.

[MineralMan]

20. A number of high schools here in the Minnesota Twin Cities

have ski teams. Most have hockey teams. Kids from all economic levels participate, and fans support the sports and help kids who can't afford them to compete.

If you are a highly skilled, competitive athlete in any of those sports, you will have no trouble continuing to compete.

Of course, it's not Polo.

[sir pball]

24. Polo hasn't been an Olympic sport since 1936. That said...

"Equestrianism" still is…and an Olympic-level dressage horse is cheap at $1,000,000. Like, dirt-cheap…5-6M is in the "reasonable" range; the most expensive guy ever sold was private, but is estimated at somewhere between $15,000,000 and $21,000,000.

Now, what were we saying about "entitlement, leisure-class athletes"?

(as a barely-not-lower-middle-class kid who grew up skiing and mountain biking, a lot of it on my $5/hr dishwasher pay, this definitely rubs me wrong)

[quaint]

21. Alysa Liu

Alysa Liu was born on August 8, 2005, in Clovis, California, the oldest child of Arthur Liu and Yan Qingxin (Mary). Arthur Liu was an attorney who immigrated to the U.S. from a small mountain village in Sichuan, China, in the 1990s at the age of 25. Liu is the oldest of five children; like her siblings, she was conceived through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother. Later, Liu's parents divorced, but her mother Yan continued to act as the siblings' legal guardian; they also frequently spent time at her house.

wikipedia

Elite skater? Yes.
Entitled childhood? No.

[JI7]

23. And ????

Even Summer athletes need to do things like raise funds with both working parents at decent jobs.

[sir pball]

25. Man, as I read this thread (language warning)...

[RockRaven]

27. If your assessment is in error, that error is

what you say about the summer olympics. For the most part those sports are no more accessible to the struggling or working class.

[Wiz Imp]

28. Despite all the negative comments, the point you were trying to make is in fact correct.

https://www.playgroundequipment.com/storage/image-gallery/average-cost-childrens-sports-5-2.webp

https://www.sportsdestinations.com/management/economics/nsga-study-8221#:~:text=The%20second%20graph%20below%20lists,incomes%20between%20$55%2C000%20and%20$57%2C000.

Research performed by NSGA earlier this year identified that the cost to participate in sports and recreational activities is one of the key barriers to greater participation. Certain sports/activities require more financial resources than others and tend to skew toward upper income households. Through the use of NSGA's annual sports participation study, an analysis of
participation by annual household income was executed to paint a clearer picture of which sports/activities typically are participated in by higher vs. lower income households.

The first graph below identifies the 10 sports/activities that are participated in by households with the highest incomes. Of the 51 sports/activities that NSGA tracks, Alpine Skiing leads the list with the median household income of participants being $114,000 per year. Golf is No. 2 with the median household income of $85,000. Rounding out the top 5 are Ice Hockey ($82,000), Scuba Diving ($81,000), and Motor/Power Boating ($77,000). Ranking Nos. 6-10 are represented by a variety of segments including Individual Sports (Tennis), Fitness (Work Out at Club), Open Water (Water Skiing, Kayaking), and Team Sports (Lacrosse). All sports/activities in the top 10 have participants with median household incomes of at least $72,000. The median household income among participants of many of these sports/activities continues to increase.

The second graph below lists the sports/activities that are participated in by households with the lowest incomes. No sport/activity has a median household income level below $50,000. Wrestling resides on that threshold at $50,000, with Target Shooting (Airgun), Tackle Football, and Dart Throwing all under $55,000. Billiards/Pool, Touch Football, Paintball Games, Hunting with Firearms, Skateboarding, and Fresh Water Fishing round out the bottom 10 with median household incomes between $55,000 and $57,000.

As a point of comparison, the average median income in the US is approximately $51,000. Comparing incomes across the 51 sports/activities that NSGA tracks, the median income averages out to approximately $66,000. The industry challenge remains to find methods to reduce financial barriers to participation, with specific focus toward the sports/activities that skew towards the highest incomes.

[tritsofme]

29. Median household income is around $75k. Those ranges you cite aren't exactly describing wealthy silver spooners.

[betsuni]

31. From chapter 3, Eat the Rich, of the how-to book "Provoking Progressives and Lampooning Liberals."

Don't forget corporate-oligarch sponsorship (corporathletes -- like the popular insult "corporadems" for Democrats, but in better shape).

[fujiyamasan]

32. I'm not sure exactly what that means with regards to sports

Winter sports are in general more expensive to pursue. The equipment, facilities, and training costs more. I remember hearing about the cost of hockey equipment from some parents and it’s not cheap, especially as you need to replace it as the kids get older.

I agree with that.

But none of that detracts from the skill of the athletes and all the time and practice they put into it.