The truth is, however, that, yes, it is well-paid, but it is a tough gig. 

Every Olympic host city struggles to become organised in advance of, during, and even after inviting the world's best athletes to their towns.

The opportunity for things to go wrong are huge - and very often they do, spectacularly, often through no fault of the Organising Committee, like with the coronavirus pandemic that hit Tokyo’s preparations just before they were due to stage the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020.

The poor person who normally cops most of the flak and has to sort everything out is the chief executive. 

But when things go right, it is often the figurehead of the Organising Committee, such as the President or chair, who basks in the glory.

OCOG chief executives have featured prominently on insidethegames this week. 

First, there was the news - later denied - that Milan Cortina 2026 chief executive Vincenzo Novari was set to step down from his role due to a lack of experience in the sports industry.

Then, today, we reported that Los Angeles 2028 chief executive Kathy Carter admitted that, like every other Organising Committee, she is facing the twin-fold problem of "how we pay for it" and having to put together a team numbering tens of thousands of staff and volunteers from scratch for a limited timeframe before they "go out of business".

Sometimes, the lifespan of an OCOG chief executive can be shorter than that of a Premier League football manager. 

Sydney 2000, for example, appointed four in three-and-a-half years before settling on Sandy Hollway in 1996, who left a top job in the Australian Government to take-up the role.

Prior to the games, Hollway was embroiled in controversy as an inquiry was launched into the Sydney 2000 ticketing policy after it was revealed most of the best tickets were not available to Australian sports fans, instead being put aside for sales at triple the face value to businesses. 

It was just one of many controversies that seemed to plague these Games, but in the end, they were an overwhelming success, and many consider them the best in history.

After leaving Sydney 2000, Hollway returned to work for the Government in a number of different roles, including being appointed Australia's first Special Envoy on Whale Conservation.

I remembered interviewing Paul Deighton the day he was appointed chief executive of London 2012 in December 2005 and asking why he had left a job at Goldman Sachs which had helped him reach the top 500 in The Sunday Times rich list for such a precarious role at an organisation which at the time was facing heavy criticism.

"To help stage the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, the world's most important sporting and cultural events, in my home city is a dream come true," he told me.

When I asked him about the revolving door policy which many OCOG’s seemed to operate when it came to employing chief executives, Deighton just laughed. 

"When I told my mother about my new job, she was more concerned about what I do after 2012, because a seven-year contract is quite a short tenure when you have been working at a bank," he said.

Deighton proved to be an outstanding success, with his forensic attention to detail proving vital in the ultimate success of the Games. 

I recall interviewing him early in 2010 and him telling me that he had already booked every portable toilet in the United Kingdom and across most of Europe to ensure that London 2012 would have enough capacity. 

A few months later, organisers of Glastonbury, the world’s most-famous music festival, announced they would be unable to host the event in 2012 due to…lack of toilet facilities.

There is no doubt that without Deighton doing all the heavy lifting in the background, Sebastian Coe would not have been considered such a successful chair of London 2012, providing the platform for him to be President of World Athletics and an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member.

After successfully completing his job at London 2012, Deighton was rewarded with a £300,000 ($400,000/€355,000) bonus, which he donated to charity, and given a place in the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Like Hollway, he has since worked for the Government in a variety of positions, including as commercial secretary to the Treasury and, in 2020, was appointed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as his "PPE Tsar" at a time the UK was struggling to source enough personal protective equipment to help with the coronavirus pandemic.

Unlike most OCOG chief executives, who are headhunted, Deighton found the Olympics: he answered an advertisement in the Economist. 

So, it seems fitting, that among Deighton’s current roles he is now chair of the The Economist Group, which publishes the world’s leading business magazine.

Politics is a popular route for former OCOG chief executives. 

There have been none, though, to have risen to the seniority of Dmitry Chernyshenko, who held the positions of both President and chief executive at Sochi 2014 - a sort of Olympic player-manager role.

He was seen as representing a new type of Russia. 

The fluent English speaker was frequent early adopter of technology as was befitting his relative youth, he even had his own Twitter account. 

Chernyshenko was also known for owning an iPad, which was rarely far away from him.

During a period when Russian President Vladimir Putin was humiliating construction bosses live on television and demanding that builders work through their holidays to ensure everything was ready in time, Chernyshenko avoided public criticism and held the role for four years.

The continuity seemed to pay off as Sochi 2014 delivered a Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games that, should not be forgotten, was widely praised in the immediate aftermath. 

Its reputation has suffered with each passing year due to the emergence of a state-sponsored doping programme, a huge $50 billion (£38 billion/€45 billion) price tag, rampant corruption and Russian aggression in Ukraine which started between the Olympic and Paralympics when Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea.

Chernyshenko's loyalty to Putin has never been in doubt. 

I remember interviewing him on stage at a conference during London 2012 when mid-sentence a message pinged on his mobile - an iPhone, of course - and he just said to me: "I need to go now because the President is arriving in the UK, and I must meet him."

That loyalty has been rewarded with a series of high-profile roles, including as the chair of Gazprom-Media, which owns more than 38 television channels and 10 radio stations.

In January last year, Chernyshenko was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for Tourism, Sport, Culture and Communications and has now become a prominent cheerleader for Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

Chernyshenko’s reputation within the Olympic Movement is now shredded to pieces, with the IOC even stripping him of the Olympic Order they had awarded him after Sochi 2014.

Novari and Carter may have plenty to worry about at the moment, but at least they do not have to deal with Vladimir Putin.