Paris reminded us why we love the Olympics

It’s been a rough few years for the Olympics — until Paris. | Sameer al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images

It’s fair to observe that in the run-up to the Summer Olympics, Parisians were feeling a bit of, how do you say, ennui. 

If they hadn’t already put their apartments on Airbnb in anticipation of fleeing the city, Parisians took to social media to complain about the Olympics and beg tourists not to come. 

Well guess what? They came, with an Olympic record 9.7 million tickets sold by the start of the Games. 

And guess what else? The many Parisians who stayed embraced Olympic fervor, cheering on the sporting exploits of Team France, from swimmer Leon Marchand (who dominated the pool in Michael Phelps-esque style) to its pole vaulters (somewhat less successful). 

But it wasn’t just Parisians who benefited from these Olympics, which come to a close this Sunday. It was all of us, coming to see through these fantastic Games just how exciting, awe-inspiring, and heart-breaking international sport can be when it takes place in the right city. 

There was the GOAT Simone Biles and her teammate Jordan Chiles bowing to floor exercise gold-medal winner Rebeca Andrade, in the first all-Black winners podium in gymnastics. There was American Cole Hocker channeling the spirit of Steve Prefontaine in a glorious come-from-behind win in the 1500-meter race. There was Arisa Trew, bringing home the gold in skateboarding at just 14 years old. There was Snoop Dogg here, there, and everywhere. And there were plenty of viewers. 

Paris, with its peerless backdrops — beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower! Equestrian events on the grounds of Versailles! — and undeniable savoir faire, may just have helped save the Olympics. At least for now.

The Covid Olympics

It’s easy to forget amid the euphoria of the Paris Games, but it’s been a rough few years for major international sporting events.

The last Summer Olympics — the delayed 2021 Tokyo Games — were heavily disrupted by Covid. For one, they were held a year late. And among other restrictions, spectators were largely banned, leaving Olympians performing in empty stadiums and arenas. Those barred included athletes’ families and friends, robbing the Olympians of their support system and fans back home from the characteristic Olympic experience of watching parents lose their minds when their kid wins a medal.

The result, I guess, gave normie sports fans a glimpse of what a track and field meet or a ski race might be like when it’s not the Olympics, but the overall atmosphere suffered terribly. That was likely a major factor in a marked decline in viewership, with the Tokyo Olympics going down as the least-watched Games ever — at least until the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. 

The 2022 Winter Games in Beijing took place while China was still pursuing its draconian “zero Covid” policy, meaning the restrictions were even more severe than they were in Tokyo. But more representative of the growing problems with international sporting events was the fact the Winter Games were in Beijing at all.

Of the six cities that initially submitted bids to host the 2022 Winter Games, four eventually withdrew their bids over cost concerns, including more obvious winter sports cities like Oslo and Stockholm. That left the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to choose between Beijing in China and Almaty in Kazakhstan — two autocratic countries with serious human rights concerns. 

Even though Beijing has averaged just 2.5 inches of snow a season and would need to fill its venues with artificial flakes at significant environmental cost, the IOC went with the Chinese bid, largely because it was willing to spend big. According to an investigation by Business Insider, China may have spent as much as $38.5 billion on the Games.

The future of international sport is autocratic

That number isn’t an aberration. The costs of hosting the Olympics have been going through the stratosphere in recent years, and the ultimate price tag is on average almost triple what the initial bid was. And it matters because if major international sporting events are going to cost this much, fewer democratic countries that need to defend the costs to their citizens are going to be willing to host, tilting the table toward autocratic countries that worry less about public opinion. 

That was the case in the 2022 World Cup, held with no little controversy in the autocratic emirate of Qatar. To accommodate the country’s brutally hot climate, the tournament (usually held in the summer) was moved to November and December, disrupting the season for international club soccer. The lead-up to the tournament was marred by allegations of bribery and corruption by the host country, while dozens of migrant construction workers died in harsh working conditions. Captains of several European soccer squads were set to wear rainbow armbands during the tournament, protesting the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Qatar — until the international soccer body FIFA threatened the national teams with sanctions. 

Like the Beijing Winter Games, which featured a number of diplomatic boycotts over the Chinese government’s human rights record, choosing Qatar to host the World Cup inevitably meant controversy. But the fact that Qatar was ultimately willing to spend some $220 billion on it — almost 15 times as much as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil cost — apparently more than outweighed those concerns. And given that the previous host in 2018 was Russia, which came with its own suite of diplomatic and political problems, international soccer had already made it clear that a little controversy wouldn’t stop it.

Oh, and while the host of the 2034 World Cup hasn’t officially been picked yet, we know it will be Saudi Arabia, with all its attendant political issues. That’s because the Middle Eastern kingdom — which among other plans has promised to build a 92,000-seat stadium from scratch — is the only host to submit a bid. 

So we should enjoy the Paris Olympics while we can, with its vibrant sporting culture, gorgeous architecture, and (mostly) absence of major political or diplomatic controversies. Given the growing dependence of international sport on deep-pocketed autocratic governments, it’s likely to be the exception in the future.  

This story originally appeared in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.