Olympic executives live the jet-set lifestyle while athletes hope for functioning toilets

Rio Olympics 2016
(Image credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/Getty Images)

The presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a volunteer position at a nonprofit organization. It also comes with a roughly $250,000 annual stipend and complimentary housing at a five-star Swiss resort.

Meanwhile, Olympic athletes heading to Rio, Brazil, for the games this week find an Olympic village with problems that include "blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed, and dirty floors." For many, the closest thing to formal compensation will be free clothes.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.