This is the view of former Canadian international athlete Bruce Kidd, who made the comments when visiting the University of Otago School of Physical Education recently.
Kidd (64), the dean of Physical Education and Health at the University of Toronto, has long been a critic of the way the Olympic Games has developed since he competed in the 5000m and marathon at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.
Kidd, who won a gold medal in the six-mile and bronze in the three-mile at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, is the only Canadian to win a Commonwealth Games or Olympic medal in the longer distances.
"The 1990s was a period of reform.
A lot of the great ideas developed then have been quietly forgotten," Kidd told the Otago Daily Times.
"When I competed at Tokyo the stadium scoreboard at every venue said something about the values of the Olympic movement.
"Most athletes today don't know who Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin [founder of the modern Olympic Games] was, let alone what his values were."
Kidd said there was a debate in Canada about whether there should be prize money for Olympic winners.
"Canada is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver. I'm embarrassed to say that we are inviting the world to our doorstep and our slogan is: "Own the podium".
Kidd translated the meaning of that slogan.
"It means come to our country to play sport so we can beat the sh.. out of you."
Kidd received a rude awakening before the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when a close Australian friend told him: "Bruce, I don't want to be rude, but those ideas have no play here.
Australia is a sporting country and we pursue excellence on the podium.
"Those educational values you talk of are Victorian values and have no place in sport today."
The Olympic Games movement around the world depends on millions of volunteers and on governments at all levels investing in facilities and an educational programme.
"My reading of public opinion is that people who contribute their time as volunteers for sport and the Olympic movement still believe that sport is educational and is not meant to be a vehicle to make millions of dollars," Kidd said.
"Sport at all levels has a rich culture and it helps boys and girls become good citizens."
Kidd believes that the further the Olympic movement moves away from these values it becomes vulnerable in other ways.
"What is sad about the Olympic movement is that International Olympic Committee (IOC) members are passionate about these values at the community level but have given up injecting these ideals into Olympic sports."
The notable exception is the strong anti-doping stand taken by the IOC.
"The commercial enterprise of the Olympic Games has become too powerful and has changed the values of the Games," Kidd said.
Despite his reservations about some aspects of the Olympic movement, Kidd is adamant that the Olympics Games has a future.
"The Games has secured a future as a major world sports event.
It still excites the imagination of the world by bringing the best athletes together."
But he sees an increasing number of world championships that threaten the exclusivity of the Olympic Games.
"The multi-sport feature of the Olympics is getting harder and harder for spectators to experience," Kidd said.
"The best place to experience the Olympic Games is at home on television".
"But the fact that all these great performers in many sports compete together at one city will ensure its future."
But he has doubts whether that future will include the educational and humanitarian projects that the Olympics can contribute to.
"There are days when I'm pessimistic about the future," Kidd said.
The majority opinion was that the Olympics were getting too big, he said.
The IOC was trying to limit the number of athletes to 10,000 and officials to 5000.
" They are continually trying to keep the lid on. It's a never ending battle."
Kidd's view is different.
He understands that high performance sport requires expensive and specialised facilities for the day-to-day operation of the Games.
"The athletes have become finely-tuned creatures who need the best possible conditions because of the stress and pressure of their events. They have to be treated in a special way like patients recovering from surgery."
That is how it is now, but Kidd believes a different approach could be used.
"If we were more relaxed about it, and not so insistent on having perfect facilities and the day-to-day caring of athletes, we could accommodate more people," Kidd said. "It would be the more the merrier."
"It's not the number of athletes that stop the Olympics from expanding. It is the special conditions that we now want to create for athletes so they can compete at the very best. That is what makes it so expensive."
