INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

Surely this should indicate that as long as high ideals, of devotion
to clean amateur sport, of the exercise of sportsmanship are
preserved, so long will a civilization last. While these ideals were
maintained, the Olympic Games prospered, and Greece
prospered.
When the Greeks became so commercially inclined they could not
even play for fun and not for pay, the Greek empire fell and was
supplanted by the Roman.” 28
“As long as England depended on dedicated men devoted to the
welfare of the country because they loved it (amateurs), Britain
ruled the waves. When they began to pay members of parliament
and it became a business, the British Empire failed.
When the United States was ruled by dedicated men – Jefferson,
Washington, Franklin, Patrick Henry – it became a great country;
when politics became a business, the country started downhill.” 29
Lastly, the issues were also commercial and connected to
nationalistic concerns. Since Alpine skiing was expensive in terms of
materials, in travelling expenses, and time, the skiers could engage
themselves in it only thanks to the economic support of the
manufacturers and the governments. Their interests were
complementary. By hawking an image of “winter sport”, “which
allows [the French government] to launch the stations, to attract
French and foreign customers, to position French producers against
their international competitors in France and abroad” 30 , the skiers
attracted the State’s aid which subsidized the creation of the ski
stations as well as the aid of the skis producers. The skiing events
became international battles where the great alpine nations like
France, Austria, and Switzerland awaited the victories with the aim of
imposing themselves as the dominant and legitimate nation from a
cultural point of view. Thus, thanks to its results, the Fédération
Française de Ski was declared a public utility on October 29, 1970 31
by the French government. These issues became even more important
with the start of the first World Cup in 1967.
Thus, it clearly acted, within the NOC, to circumvent the risks of
disqualification before Sapporo:
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