When balance is difficult it’s prudent to err on the side of caution (from The Atlantic):

This is the paradox of the present moment: If we wait until the problem is sufficiently visible to transform overreaction into mere reaction again, we will have been too late.

Throughout the cold war, Soviet bloc nations used sport as a proxy for economic success. With the connivance of the International Olympic Committee, they turned what used to be an amateur sport into the equivalent of a national defence force, hurling money and status at their athletes

There might be something to that view, but if the Olympics really are a modern equivalent of bread and circuses is that actually a bad thing? There are many worse ways to build a sense of national pride.