Amateurism.

The retirement of Avery Brundage as president of the International Olympic Committee at the end of the 1972 Olympics marked the beginning of the end of pretense about the games being restricted to amateur athletes. Star athletes had challenged the rule in the Olympics of the 1960s, and by 1972 it was clear that Western athletes enjoyed a level of support that approached the Eastern system of state support. The new president, Lord Killanin of Ireland, announced immediately that his first priority would be to reconsider the definition of amateurism as it related to the qualification of athletes for the games.

The Winter Games.

The Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo, Japan, from 3 to 13 February. There were 1,015 men and 212 women from thirty-seven nations competing. A hint of controversy arose when Austrian skier Karl Schranz was banned from competition for flagrant commercialism. Although he encouraged his...