The Olympics are on, which provides the opportunity to marvel at the athleticism of Simone Biles and Suni Lee and at how different badminton at that level is than in our backyards.

It’s also a time to shake our heads in dismay at the inefficiency and outright corruption involved in putting on such global athletic events. The Olympics (and the FIFA World Cup as well) are routinely marked by massive infrastructure projects that include pledges that the spending and construction will benefit the general population — pledges seldom kept.

One prominent example has arisen already in Paris. Organizers planned from the outset to use the River Seine as the venue for the endurance swimming events. The obvious problem: the Seine is chronically polluted, and swimming in the iconic river has been forbidden for a century.

The 2024 Games provided the incentive to spend about $1.5 billion to clean up the river, including the construction of a massive reservoir that can hold more than 12 million gallons of wastewater that usually is discharged into the Seine after heavy rains.

The result: Water quality is at best on the border line for the Seine’s scheduled events. It’s a second-guess at best, but experts tell The Associated Press that climate change, and the heavier rains that accompany it, doomed the reservoir approach.

As for the venues themselves: Those built specifically for the Olympic stage invariably prove overdone for routine use. Few swimming event outside the Olympics demand in excess of 10,000 seats. Nor is there much demand for 90,000-seat track and field venues. So these facilities, built at great expense, fall rapidly into disuse and disrepair.

In that light, it appears wise that the International Olympic Committee last week awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. That minimizes the need to build new facilities, as the Utah capital has maintained the venues from the 2002 games.

But the IOC also insists that the U.S. drop investigations and criticism of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has refused to act against widespread, apparently state-sponsored, athletic doping by China and Russia. The contract gives the IOC the right to pull the games on that basis.

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee officials and Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox signed that agreement. They should not have, and federal officials should disregard it.

The IOC needs Salt Lake City, the only bidder for the 2034 Games, more than it needs to shield WADA from a transparent investigation of its failures.

The Olympics Games meld athletic excellence with wasted resources and

corruption.