Olympic rings in Tokyo.
(Image credit: Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images)

"The Olympics are unreformable, and I think, on balance, they do more harm than good," David Goldblatt, author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, told The New York Times.

With the delayed 2020 games set to begin later this month in Tokyo, despite an increase in COVID-19 infections in Japan, the Times explored the question of whether the numerous issues surrounding the Olympics outweigh the joys of competing in (for athletes) and watching (for fans) for two-weeks every for years. Unsurprisingly, there's more than one response out there, but while few people are in favor of abolishing the Olympics outright, the consensus seems to be that the games can't operate the way they do right now. Key complaints, the Times writes, are "corruption in host bidding, a lack of [International Olympic Committee] accountability, and a dearth of athlete rights."

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.