How do ya like those Olympics now

You know, I'm not exactly surprised it happened.  I would have thought it would take longer than a week, though.

No sooner, it seems, than the athletes and cameras had packed up and headed home, Russia dropped its Olympic niceness facade.  Soldiers and armaments popped up in Crimea, a region on the south end of Ukraine, on Friday, barely a week since the president/chief moocher-off-the-people departed Kyiv and less than a week after the closing ceremonies in Sochi.

Or are they just upset about that Ukrainian gold medal in women's biathlon relay?

The timing didn't escape the notice of US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was out on today's Meet the Press making the point that Russia was going to "lose all of the glow that came out of the Olympics, his $60 billion extravaganza."  True, an invasion of another nation's sovereign borders does seem an odd way to follow up on a crazy expensive propaganda campaign disguised as an Olympic Games.

So far, it seems that Thomas Bach, the IOC chair who thought it best that Ukrainian athletes stay and play rather than return to their homeland in crisis, doesn't seem to have made any public statements about Russia's Olympic followup.  Perhaps he's moved on to making sure Rio stays on track to remove all those slum dwellers and getting their facilities built.

At some point the Olympics, already guilty of elevating sports to something like an idol, are going to have to think about something other than money when choosing Olympic host sites.  This is, or at least should be, a huge embarrassment to the IOC, although I doubt they can see through the dollar signs to notice.

This was, of course, only the most visible sign of belligerence out of Russia since Sochi emptied out. The night after Bach's fatuous remarks, over four hundred Russians were rounded up and arrested for protesting, and a few days later a prominent opposition leader was put under house arrest for being an opposition leader.  Then the Crimea occupation followed.  It's hard to imagine this is how the Olympic charter recommends a host country follow up the event.

And will the IOC care or even notice?  Probably not.  At least the NFL has the temerity to move its crown jewel event when a host state does something stupid.

If you're looking for a least morally credible sports organization in the world, you can keep the NFL or NCAA.  The IOC leaves those guys in the dust.