Is an amateur ethos the answer?

Time for a teaser to tickle the brain this grey autumn day: is professionalism killing sport?

A punchy opener, but one being teed up by former Kent, Middlesex and England batsman Ed Smith for a special edition of BBC One's Inside Sport.

Smith, who gained a double first at Cambridge before turning to professional sport, was always a little more cerebral than your average sportsman; when he discussed ethics, he wasn't talking about the county skippered by Graham Gooch.

Smith asks three questions on the show. Has the fun gone out of sport, and do the top sport stars actually enjoy what they do? Would their performance improve considerably if they simply relaxed and put the enjoyment back into game? And is professionalism actually making our sportsmen worse at their sport?

"I didn't enjoy playing for England," fellow cricketer Mark Ramprakash tells him. Champion jockey Tony McCoy goes further: "I've been practically crying after getting out of a hot bath, being that exhausted trying to get down to a really low weight."

Colin Montgomerie tells a story of friends staying overnight at Tiger Woods' house who were awoken at 4am by the sound of the world's number one golfer working out in his gym. "The pursuit of control and perfection has strangled the joy out of his game and his life," concludes Smith.

In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.

It's an alluring argument, but one that's wide open for debate - and not only because the amateur alternative brings to mind that scene in Chariots of Fire where Lord Andrew Lindsay, played by Nigel Havers, has his butler place glasses of champagne on his high hurdles to aid his training drills.

For many sportsmen, the sacrifices required to reach the top bring their own strange pleasure. Satisfaction comes from knowing that you've pushed yourself far harder than you believed you could, harder than others could, and learned an immense amount about your own character in the process.

Successful sportsmen tend to be ultra-competitive, driven individuals. Take away the financial rewards and most would still be just as determined to win; try playing Scrabble with Sir Ian Botham and see how far it gets you.

Relaxation and performance are established bed-fellows. Psychologist Steve Peters is so highly regarded by Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton because his techniques allow them to shake off their 'chimp' - the anxiety and self-doubt that gnaw away in the moments before a race - and perform in a state of controlled calm.

If British track and road cycling had not been transformed by the ultra-professional approach of Peter Keen, Dave Brailsford and others, Peters would still be working at Rampton high security hospital, and Hoy and Pendleton would not the stellar successes that they are. "Without Steve I don't think I could have brought home the triple golds from Beijing," Hoy has said.

Woods' drive and obsession with perfection, you suspect, are not confined to sport. Had his father Earl decided to storm the bastions of academia rather than golf, Woods is unlikely to have ended up leaving school at 16.

"When you make a living from the game, it starts to matter, and the mattering gets in the way of the playing," says Smith.

There's another way of looking at it. The mattering is what makes it worth playing. If the result is irrelevant, why bother entering the contest in the first place, and why bother watching on from the stands?

In the documentary, Usain Bolt admits, "I was lazy. My coach is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me."

Of all the record-breaking sportsmen the world has seen, perhaps no-one appears to enjoy the pressure, the competition and the eventual triumph as much as Bolt. Yet he is also the highest-paid track and field star of all time.

Sporting success, financial reward and extrovert enjoyment co-exist happily for the Jamaican. So why shouldn't they for others?

Inside Sport: Is Professionalism Killing Sport? is repeated on Saturday 2 October; BBC ONE 1300-1330 BST.

Bolton wanderers Tickets Burnely Fixtures Burnely News Burnely Players Burnely Transfers