asterisk8 said:

Sports...are also highly symbolic war game.s If you think that's lost on world leaders, you're crazy. So, right off the bat, it's presumptuous to assume that the Olympics are about fostering peace. Maybe on the surface, but politics is about claiming to foster peace while you prepare for war. Peacekeeper missile, anyone?

You don't foster peace between nations by beating them in a physical competition. My strongest memory about the Olympics, growing up in the 80s, is people cheering for the US to beat those commie bastards in the USSR.

As you so astutely pointed out, sports are indeed a modern-day way of releasing our innate warlike behaviours. But does that make them a bad thing? Is it really that harmful competing with other countries in a non-violent, non-lethal way, with no real life repercussions?