[unfocussed_mike]

> Nowadays, it kind of feels like Olympics are just annoying. Propaganda fest for authoritarian regimes.

It really always was. I mean, people were actually murdered for political reasons at the Olympics in 1972. And much of the visual imagery of the Olympics, including the torch procession, has as much to do with Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl as it does sporting achievement. And then it went through a significant period where it was really a proxy for the Cold War.

The Olympics has always had a whiff of fascism about it (not least because of Juan Antonio Samaranch) and in many ways operates now as a sort of corporatist sledgehammer for major legal change, as does Fifa.

> No one cares. Heck, some people don’t even know that the Olympics are even happening.

There's more on the telly. But we care in Britain; the (Summer) Olympics has become a way for us to demonstrate outsize capability. Less so the Winter Olympics, which has never been a big deal for most of the world; just a few countries with permanent snow.