Don’t you love the Olympic Games? Me, too.

Where else can you find supposedly amateur athletes compete in so many different sports.

You may remember the Miracle on Ice at the 1980. Millions of us couldn’t watch the live telecast from Lake Placid. We were at work, but rushed home for the rebroadcast, unaware of how the hockey match between US college players and the mighty Soviet professional team had ended.

Our family ate pizza and watched the dramatic upset.

The underdog USA team defeated the 4-time goldmedal winning Soviet team.

The Soviets were regarded as the finest in the world, but they fell 4-3 to amateurs. 2 days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch gold.

Costs rising

Next year’s Tokyo Olympics are already the most expensive Summer Games on record, a University of Oxford study said.

The cost overrun already exceeds 200%. This is even before several billion dollars more from the 1-year delay due to covid-19.

The study found the games’ costs have kept rising despite claims by the International Olympic Committee on costs being cut.

Most of the costs are picked up by governments - in other words, taxpayers like us - with the IOC paying only a small part.

The researchers found the Olympics have the highest level of risk, a trend that can’t continue. No major city will want to do this in future because it’s too costly.

Olympic debt

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, whose city is to hold the 2028 Olympics, said “Unless you have a government willing to go into debt or pay the subsidy of what this costs, most cities will never say yes to the Olympics again unless they find the right model.”

By the right model, he means lower costs.

Tracking Olympic costs is difficult. Politicians and organizers argue over what are or not Olympic expenses.

The study covers only the operating and capital costs - the cost to build sports venues. They left out other categories many times larger:

• Rebuilding roads, airports and sprucing up projects paid by taxpayers.

• The cost of debt, the future cost of running sports venues after the Olympics leave and inflation.

Tokyo’s costs

Tokyo said the cost would be $7.3 billion when it won the bid in 2013. Yet it’s spending is $15.84 billion, surpassing the 2012 London Olympics at $14.95 billion.

Tokyo organizers claim they are spending $12.6 billion but a national auditor says the actual costs are twice that high.

How much is the US government paying - in our tax dollars - to send our athletes to Tokyo? No one is saying.

Got a comment? Please write me at ChronicleSports@yahoo.com .