An Olympic year tends to play out in two phases: the dread and the fever. The dread is easy to detect: fears of grotesque cost overruns, enormous infrastructure that may moss over and rot, ambivalence or even hostility from citizens of the host nation.

If you want an indication of what a strange albatross the Olympics have become, consider that in the space of seven months last year, Boston both won the right to mount the U.S. bid for the Summer Games in 2024 and completely abandoned it—a mortifying flameout.

The...