The Winter Olympics’ Sour Ending Was Just A Preview For Summer 2028

Now that the Olympics are over and their two most noteworthy gold medals, the men's and women's ice hockey championship, have been clawed by the gangrenous mitts of politics, we can now embrace the awfulness by association of the next two large-scale sporting events to be held in this country: the World Cup this summer and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

The men's team has been savaged for their open canoodling with the administration, all the way down to letting FBI Director Kash Patel behave like a confused assistant equipment manager, and the women's team has caught it for declining an invitation to visit the White House—clear cases of damned if you win, damned if you win again. The Olympics has always been a political windfall for whichever opportunistic swine is in position to exploit its champions, and given our developing taste for walking-and-talking toxicity in an ill-fitting suit, one can only imagine what we're in for in the next 30 months or so. But we're pretty sure you will take a more generous view of tanking when it comes.

The World Cup likely won't offer that level of inappropriate touching from the administration, if only because the U.S. is almost certain not to win, but ICE will be on hand to threaten athletes and citizens alike as part of their homage to the late 1930s, thus making the entire experience unpleasant for everyone while not dependent on where the Americans finish. The Olympics, though, will have its own flavor, and it is bathroom grout toothpaste.