Bach not only lent legitimacy to the proceedings; in 2019 he awarded the IOC’s Trophy of Olympic Values to now-sanctioned Putin oligarch Alisher Usmanov.

It’s no exaggeration to say all this had a significant and nefarious international impact. For one thing, it contributed to Putin’s air of “I can get away with anything I want,” Massaro observes. Putin came to believe that Western business stakes in Russia would prevent serious sanctions or even much pushback on Ukraine. “It’s absolutely connected,” Massaro says. “It’s all part of a pattern of impunity and enabling Putin’s mind-set.”

It’s crucial to recognize the serious and malignant role the Olympics played, one much broader than merely giving Putin prestige or public relations. The Games are part of what Massaro describes as a strategy of “elite capture” through which actors such as Putin and Xi try to co-opt and compromise Western influencers with various forms of financial entanglement. They’re a cog in “transnational networks that are used by the Kremlin, the CCP and other dictators to pursue their foreign policy goals and exert influence.” Just read Massaro’s breathtakingly prescient argument for severe sanctions in Foreign Policy magazine from December.