Who else is enthralled by this holiday season’s blockbuster drama, Putin vs. Bach?

It’s a Cold War-era redux starring Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, and Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee — two leaders who answer to no one.

Bach’s reputation, not to mention the credibility of his august organization, was wounded by Russia’s audacious doping program. He has just a short time left to decide how to save face. Putin, who calls the whole thing a Western conspiracy, has all but publicly dared Bach to respond with force.

They are in a standoff, nose-to-nose, shirt sleeves rolled up, each waiting for the other to blink.

The Olympic committee will announce on Tuesday how it is punishing Russia for one of the most ambitious and delicious (see its steroid cocktail recipe here) doping schemes in sports history. Many people outside Russia seem to believe that barring the Russians entirely from the Pyeongchang Games is fair and necessary, considering they corrupted the outcomes on the playing field and stole medals from clean athletes in several Olympics — most notably the Winter Games they hosted in Sochi, in 2014.

If only Bach’s reasoning were that linear.

The Olympic committee has a long track record of being too timid and much too slow in making strong decisions on sensitive subjects, especially when dealing with powerful nations that use sports to show off their strength. (See internet censorship at the 2008 Beijing Games or the issue of Russia’s anti-gay legislation before the Sochi Games.) When upset, those nations have the ability to shake the Olympic movement to its core.