Were the IOC to use its leverage over autocratic hosts to push for change, or if it simply used its own behavior to set an example, some critics might be more forgiving. Instead, the group itself appears to be sliding deeper into an opaque, autocratic approach.

Jens Weinreich, a German investigative journalist who has been tracking Olympic powerbrokers for three decades, told me, “The IOC itself is a totalitarian system. More than ever.”

Part of the story, critics argue, is a change in leadership. When Beijing was bidding for the 2022 Games, the IOC was centralizing power under its new president Thomas Bach, a German lawyer and 1976 Olympian in fencing, who was first elected in 2013. Last summer, when Bach announced he’d pursue another term as president, he reportedly went around the virtual room and called on committee members as they heaped over-the-top praise on Bach. “We have one captain, and that captain is you,” one IOC member said, according to the New York Times. Bach was reelected with straight-up dictator numbers: 93-1 with four abstentions.

To be sure, the IOC’s problems didn’t begin with Bach. Still, under his leadership, the organization has doubled down on an iron-fisted approach. Bach has changed the rules surrounding the bidding process multiple times. The actual IOC has become a rubberstamp organization while the real power has been amassed in smaller “future host commissions” of less than a dozen IOC members.