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It hasn't been that for a long, long time. Giving the Olympics to China was a political decision by the IOC, even though it knew China would not clean up its human rights 'problems' as it (IOC) said it (China) would. Big business has made it into an advertising bonanza with overt displays of corporate greed (ask anyone who has joined a corporate package to the Olympics). The athletes are paid big bucks and any medals won are vehicles to financially rewarding endorsements. Don't get me started on the media; at the Sydney Games, the members of the press corps outnumbered the athletes.
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Claire ex-ax: Corporate influence and greed is much different than Politics, although they're clearly not mutually exclusive. But I mean apolitical as in people have rarely interfered with the Olympics just to get in a few jabs on a political level against the hosting country (I say rarely because there have been exceptions).
But ever since Antiquity, this has been the trend, because I've read of the Greeks and Persians stopping their on-and-off wars just for the Olympics, only to resume shortly after. But maybe what I'm reading is wrong.
My point is just that it's unfortunate that an event like this, in which people are there to enjoy the Olympic games themselves, is being appropriated by people on both sides to forward their own political causes.
I do agree with you on all of what you said in terms of corporate greed, because, frankly, it's prevalent in every single piece of society these days and it's only getting worse.