Olympics Should Stop Pretending to Be What They’re Not

The 2026 Winter Olympics have arrived in Milano-Cortina with the usual pomp: flags, anthems, flashy choreography, and the insistence that, for two weeks, humanity has agreed to behave itself. This is the Olympics’ oldest and most profitable illusion: the idea that sports are a kind of international diplomacy, and that the International Olympic Committee is the custodian of peace.