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American Olympians could find it easier to promote products and sponsors during the Games after the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee loosened some of its strict marketing rules on Tuesday.
For years, athletes have chafed about one such guideline, Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter, which sharply restricts what they can say and do with their sponsors immediately before and during the Games. Many athletes call it a “gag rule” that curtails their freedom of speech and unfairly sidelines the sponsors who bankrolled and supported their training, sometimes for years, at the moment of highest visibility.