The 2016 Summer Olympic Games are finally upon us! The athletes are trained and ready to go in Rio. The nation sits glued to their TV screens to see who will be crowned the best of the best, but most people watching the games don't know the dark cloud that hangs over the athletes as they step onto the field of competition. That cloud, is known as Rule 40.

What is Rule 40 you might ask? I will put a link at the bottom to the official Olympic document that has the rule entirely. An abbreviated version is this, "Rule 40 prohibits athletes from marketing themselves during the most high-profile two weeks of their career - the Olympics. Meanwhile official sponsors and the IOC profit. Except as permitted by the IOC executive board, no competitor, coach, trainer or official who participates in the olympic games may allow his person, name, picture or sports performances to be used for advertising purposes during the olympic games."

Your next question would probably be something along the lines of, "Who cares? Why does this matter?" To answer that we have to look at how the athletes who will be competing live before the games. I'm going to use statistics and examples mostly from athletes on the Track & Field part of Team USA because I am the closest to that area and the athletes from that sport have been the most vocal against Rule 40 so far. Only half of American Track & Field athletes who are ranked in the top 10 of their individual event earn more than $15,000 a year from the sport and governing body. A majority of our nation's best athletes, who we want to go represent us on the world wide competition field, live way below the poverty line. They are forced to scrape together a barely-livable income made up of prize money, sponsor contracts, grants, and part time jobs. Imagine this, you pull into a Dunkin' Donuts in Boston. When you walk in to order New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is working the register and taking orders. Crazy right? Well that is what most professional runners have to deal with. If not that they resort to opening funding accounts online or bankrupting their parents essentially. It is estimated just to get to the Olympics with training, equipment, coaches, and travel to be in the six figure range. Hope you have enough money for a ticket to Rio.

Amid the controversy of these Olympics from Russian doping to pollution in Rio we forget who really is getting screwed over in the Olympics, the athletes. Like a monkey trained to dance we expect them to be at the top of their game every four years to win without exception because we are Team USA and we must have excellence. What people do not understand is the cost it puts on the athletes not just physically, but also financially. Hopefully by 2020 Tokyo we can change this outdated and pointless rule and support our athletes like we should. The days of Athletes living in poverty while the IOC makes millions is over.

Official Rule 40: https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Athletes_In...

Sources:

http://rule40.com/

http://www.cracked.com/article_24242_6-reasons-bei...

http://running.competitor.com/2016/07/features/wha...