A little more than six weeks ahead of the opening ceremony, the Olympic flame is making its way through Brazil en route to Rio, the torch relay a visually striking bit of pageantry first choreographed by organizers of Germany's 1936 Games.
The flame will light the fuse on a global showcase for the Zika virus, athletes doping, sewage-polluted waterways, terrorism fears, crass commercialism, jingoism, rampant corruption and a host nation's largesse it can ill afford with its economy limping along.
It's a heck of a TV miniseries, no doubt about it, and it should make a ton of money for TV networks, sponsors and the International Olympic Committee.
But it would not be a tragedy if the next Games were the last Games.
There must be a better way to determine who appears on a box of cornflakes.
Now you may well be thinking, oh sure, many aspects of the Olympics are bloated with rot, a magnet for all kinds of bad stuff, but what about the athletes?
So let's consider the athletes, setting aside the phenomenon of testing technology catching up with cheaters a few years later and revealing the greatest triumph for some was initially dodging detection.
The athletes, as countless schmaltzy Olympic TV profiles over the years have impressed on us, dedicate every waking hour to getting to the Olympics in hopes of proving themselves on the global stage every four years.
Sports, however, have annual world championships every year so there's a global stage, Olympics or no. The only knock on them is they're overshadowed by the Olympics, which have successfully marketed themselves as something nobler somehow.
The IOC likes to trot out how Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman often embraced as father of the modern Olympics 120 years ago, saw them as a way to promote world peace.
But it's not as though there has been a shortage of wars in the interim.
Remember the Sochi Winter Olympics a couple of years ago?
IOC President Thomas Bach, during the closing ceremony, made a point to single out Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spared no expense to impress the IOC, "for his personal commitment to the extraordinary success" of the Games.
Part of that success, Bach said, was the "powerful message" the gathered athletes delivered "from Sochi to the world: the message of a society of peace, tolerance and respect."
Bach then issued an "appeal to everybody implicated in confrontation, oppression or violence: Act on this Olympic message of dialogue and peace."
Putin waited days before sending troops into Crimea.
Frankly, if the IOC wanted the Games to be about promoting humanity rather than nationalism, it wouldn't raise flags at the medal ceremonies and wouldn't play the national anthem of the gold medal winner. Make it about citizens of the world and not nations.
This isn't going to happen, though. Nations have been known to pump money (and sometimes steroids and other miracles of modern science) into developing Olympic competitors in hopes of putting on the best face on the world stage.
But the result isn't a substitute for international aggression, just an extension of it. Save for when that manifests itself in some sort of boycott, the IOC is the beneficiary of that kind of enthusiasm and engagement.
Also TV viewers in a given country may find themselves watching a sport in which they ordinarily have no earthly interest because it has been cast as an us-vs.-them conflict. Big audience means big money in rights fees and sponsorship money for the IOC.
So, you know, USA, USA, USA.
Similarly, host countries such as Brazil may find themselves diverting resources to make a statement to the global community, that can -- though not always -- come at the expense of real needs and their vulnerable citizens. This happens reliably enough that some have fairly argued the IOC encouraging cities to compete to be host is in itself an irresponsible act.
Cash-strapped Chicago can be grateful its 2016 Olympics bid failed, Rio's victory sparing this city the indignity of going further into hock trying to deliver on its own grandiose promises.
It's bad karma, however, to view with anything but sympathy the problems Rio faces with construction, funding, pollution, medical threats and the rest that are only exacerbated by Brazil's faltering economy and scandal-stained government.
Why should any city and its people be put through the wringer like that?
There's nothing wrong with a relay of torches on their way to the Rio Olympics.
But if you're not blinded by showmanship and marketing, you'd want to see some pitchforks with them.
Sports on 06/23/2016