Justin, how much would you say you love the Olympics?

Oh, I love them a lot.

Justin Peters is Slate's Olympics correspondent.

He's turned out 10 Olympics articles in the past six days.

It's one of those things where you love something that's really bad for you, like Cool Ranch Doritos.

Like, you know that in the big scheme of things, it's something that is only, you know, has negative consequences.

But while you're eating the Doritos, it's fantastic.

I also love the Olympics, which, all right, that's not much of a hot take here,

because what's not to like?

Every two years, the Olympics, they show up on TV, and it's as if this veil is lifted.

Like, I'm reminded of that while I'm over here going about my life,

getting the kids off the school, making sure I'm separating my trash from my recyclables.

The whole time, all of these countless athletes around the world,

they've been training like hell for sports I often barely understand.

Every year, I'm mesmerized.

My world feels bigger.

But I also work in daily news, and so I, like Justin, understand that the Olympics, they come with a lot of baggage.

They have such a massive negative footprint on the world, especially on the areas that come to host them every two years.

There are these gigantic development projects that always end up costing billions of dollars and delivering so little actual benefit to the locals who actually live in the locations. It's a mechanism for

projecting state power. And despite all of that, it is still the most amazing spectacle. And everyone

of the world is sitting and watching the same thing at the same time.

That collective spotlight, it puts a lot of pressure on athletes who might not be used to this level of attention.

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