That was true for a long time, used to be NCAA players competing for olympic medals. I believe the Dream Team was the first team (not sure if ever or in a long time) where Basketball pros could compete in the Olympics.

Well yes, the Olympics were all-amateur until the 1980s. Tennis boycotted the games from 1924 to 1988 because of the ban on professionals competing.

Today it's primarily professional and bears little resemblance to Baron de Coubertin's vision.

> It sounds like "professionals" weren't allowed to compete. Image if no one from the NBA was allowed in the olympic basketball games. It would be pretty second rate.

TIL Olympic basketball of my childhood was second-rate.

That's kind of how men's Olympic football is, isn't it? You don't see the top football players in the tournament, because FIFA prevents them:

> In order to avoid competition with the World Cup, FIFA have restricted participation of elite players in the men's tournament in various ways: currently, squads for the men's tournament are required to be composed of players under 23 years of age, with three permitted exceptions.

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