Critical Reflections on Olympic Ideology From the Bank to the Baron (1694-1896): A 200 year history of amateurism embedded in the Olympic Ideal

In a recent series of articles on the topic of ama-teurism, published together in the journal Quest (November, 1993), several authors have contributed their expertise in both history and philosophy to a reappraisal of the appropriateness or worthiness of the term ‘amateur ’ in contemporary sporting par-lance. Schneider and Butcher (15), and Morgan (l2), in particular attempt to re-conceptualise an ideal of amateurism that represents a contemporary sporting ethic, thus saving it from its anachronistic associa-tions with prize-money and wages and the corrup-tions that assumedly follow: associations that Schneider and Butcher see as, “unfortunate because the concept of amateurism has now been completely abandoned, and with it has gone an opportunity to continue to articulate the value of the intrinsic good