When the games first began they were an event of pure competition and sportsmanship. As time passed giant corporations grew out from our society and began commercializing the world around them for their own profit. The same has happened to the Olympics. Once a great show of amateur athletes competing in different disciplines of sport, the Olympics were and awesome sight of spirit and challenge. Now these giant corporations are corrupting this great event by commercializing the Olympics themselves and the people in and around them.
             For example, in the 1998 Nagano winter Olympics, a 1400-year-old Buddhist temple was transformed into an Olympic landmark. The monks of the The Zenkoji Temple were being asked for autographs by the many fans that flooded the Olympic village during the two and a half week period.
             Because of this giant outburst of commercialism in the Olympics, ever since the Sidney 2000 summer games, security guards have been checking for not only knives and explosives, but also for things such as cans and bottles of Pepsi. This may sound strange, but it is a part of a massive break down on "non-official" products, where brand names such as Pepsi are being banned from the games. Also local stores that are in the Olympic village do not accept non-Visa credit cards and the only logos seen in that area are those of Olympic sponsors. This is mainly because Kodak, Coca-Cola and Visa are the main official sponsors of the Olympic games. A certain café in the Olympic village even had to stop selling a bacon and egg roll because it was too similar to a certain Egg McMuffin.
             All these clampdowns basically come from the severe criticism that was directed at the Olympic committee in the 1996 Atlanta games. It was clearly seen that the over-commercialized Olympics began corrupting and abusing the athletes. Commercialism was also the main reason why the winter and summer games were separated from the s...