From the time we crawled out of the muck and mire, we human beings have told each other stories. It’s the way we make sense of our world. It’s also the way we give voice to our hopes and dreams.

The International Olympic Committee, for reasons that mystify, does not know how to tell a story.

This is why, yet again, it is getting its ass kicked in the candidature process, now for the 2026 Winter Games. Two cities are already out. Five remain in but none definitively. 

Pardon the bluntness but, really. This does not need to be this way.