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This is America Dissective. I'm your host, Dr. Abdul-Elsaid.

I'll never forget the first Olympics that I was old enough to watch. It was 1996, and the Olympics were held right here in Atlanta.

I'd convinced my parents to buy me one of those guides that lay out the storylines in what to watch. We needed those back in the day before the internet.

I had a huge crush on Olympic gymnast Dominique Mucciano, who would go on to win an Olympic gold medal as one of the magnificent seven who took gold on the heroics of Kerry Strug.

Muhammad Ali, my childhood and adulthood hero carried the Olympic flame on its final leg, lighting the Olympic torch.

And the Dream Team, the USA men's basketball team, featured Shaq, Hakim Alajuan, and Charles Barkley on one team.

It was the 90s, a moment that at that time felt post-historic, but having lived through 9-11, the Great Recession, the Trump presidency, and the pandemic, from here it feels almost prehistoric.

But even then, the Olympics were not without their issues.

Shortly after one this morning, police received a 9-1-1 call, described as a calm American male voice warning of a bomb.

The Olympic bombing took two lives and injured 111 others. But even beyond that, there were other issues, young athletes being pushed beyond their limits.

Even when Kerry Strug landed that gold medal-clinching dismount, she was clearly injured. She was 18, and near the end of her gymnastics career.

Since the Olympics have only grown, the Tokyo Games will cost $15 billion, and that's just to execute the games.

That doesn't include each country's investment in their Olympic training program, the athletic sponsorships, and all the lucrative TV deals.

Momma money, no problems.

The process by which cities bid for hosting the Olympics is murky at best, rife with bid rigging, bribery, vote buying, and geopolitical intrigue.

It's an autocrat's dream, and strongmen have enriched themselves from the lucrative contracts that flow from hosting the Olympic Games.

Vladimir Putin allegedly made billions off of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

And then there's the fact that the Russian team has been banned from participating under their flag because of a team-wide doping scandal.

When Rio hosted the Games, 75,000 people were displaced, just so a few thousand could compete, reaping millions in TV deals for the International Olympic Committee,

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