Athletes and the Ancient Church

I came across this quote in some reading I was doing:

The professions and trades of those who are going to be accepted into the community must be examined. The nature and type of each must be established… brothel, sculptors of idols, charioteer, athlete, gladiator… give it up or be rejected.
Hippolytus of Rome, AD 218

Why would the early Church consider athletes to be suspect for membership in the Church? I can understand those who work in a brothel or sculpt idols would need to give up their line of work, and from the movies I’ve seen, charioteer and gladiator might not have been the most respectable careers. But why athletes? Was it because of some connection of athletics (Olympics?) to pagan gods? Was it because athletes performed nude? Was it because of corruption?

According to the books of the Maccabees (1 Macc 1:11-15; 2 Macc 4:7-17), the Jews saw athletics as pagan, and decried the priests who neglected their service in the temple to go watch the discus throwers. Josephus (Antiquities xv.8.2) noted that athletic games fell into disrepute after the Maccabean revolt (167 B.C.). But when the Church was bringing in Gentiles, Roman converts, why was it such a bad thing to be an athlete?

I guess I have a new pet research project. Anyone know why Hippolytus would have had a low view of athletes?

UPDATE (8 September 2008): Dave Timmer from Central College offered this suggestion: "The Greek and Latin words that are cognates to our word "athlete" can also have the more specific meaning of "prizefighter"; I wonder if it is that particular sport which Hippolytus intends to forbid for Christians, rather than sports in general. That wouldn't make boxing fans happy, but it would get baseball off the hook. (Not "basebrawl" fans, though.)" Dave wants to make it clear that this is just a suggestion, not a scholarly opinion. Thanks, Dave!