This year's games are less bad than many previous ones. France, for all its faults, is not a mass-murdering authoritarian state, like Russia or China. And the Paris organizers have, to some extent, kept costs down by relying on existing facilities. Nonetheless, some migrants and homeless people have been forcibly displaced for the games (researchers estimate that  some 12,500 people were forced out), and I will be very surprised if French taxpayers avoid being burdened with severe cost overruns, even if they are smaller than those for many previous Olympics.

It doesn't have to be that way. In 2022, in the aftermath of the awful Beijing Winter Games, I outlined a series of reforms that can fix the dark side of the Olympics, while preserving their role as a great athletic competition.