Why Some Cities Shouldn't Give Up on the Olympics

Nobody wants to host the 2022 Olympics? That can't be right. Both Beijing and Almaty (the former capital of Kazakhstan) are competing for the nod to host the 2022 Winter Games, as Deadspin acknowledges. It would be closer to the truth to say that no free city is likely to put on the Games, but there are free and free-ish cities in the mix. Lviv would be one democratic city in the running were Ukraine not being invaded by the host of last winter's Games.

Still, with Munich, Krakow, and Stockholm all pulling out as potential hosts and the bid from Oslo looking iffy, it certainly appears that Western cultural capitals are coming around to the conventional wisdom that hosting the Olympic Games isn't worth it. But the CW is mistaken—at least for some cities. Dictators like Kazakh bossman Nursultan Nazarbayev bid for the Olympics as a way to buy validation on the global stage. Democracies get something else out of the deal: the chance to act a little bit more like dictators. This can be a good thing.