The Olympics were intended to showcase amateur athletics rather than commercially-supported professionals. Yet during the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed a highly "professional" sport system which provided living expenses, training facilities, and luxury perks for its "amateur" athletes.

Sylvain Dufraisse (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) describes the beginnings of the Soviet system in the 1930s and the later controversies that dogged Soviet athletes at the Olympics.

View the cartoon Dufraisse discusses and episode notes here: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/resource/sport-in-the-cold-war/episode-26-olympic-professionals