[dsc]

“At least they’re not bankrupting their populace to train the world’s best athletes,”

Compared to what the USSR spent on armaments, sports were a drop in the bucket.

If you were an Olympic gold medalist you got a crappy apartment, a tiny refrigerator, maybe an old car, and you could spend your widow’s mite in special stores. Start losing, and it all went away.

For many athletes, extra gear to be sold or traded for blue jeans at international meets was their principal income stream...such as it was.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

I hadn't heard what happened to them *after* their days as an Olympian were over. I just knew that while they were still in training, they were treated like royalty. For example, I read of the USSR men's hockey team's perks.

Of course, perhaps their major perk was they had opportunities to defect to the West.

And maybe we should give the old USSR a posthumous Gold Medal for "celebrating diversity" sexually speaking, decades before the West did. Remember those XXY chromosome wo-men who were on their women's track teams? They were told to disguise their voices, and had to secretly shave off body hair constantly. Talk about true believers in "gender fluidity". Har!

Speaking of "perks for the losers," Wasn't it Saddam who threw his entire losing national soccer team into a wood chipper? Or was that just an urban myth?