THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Tokyo 2020 faced challenges no Olympics has ever dealt with. We take a look at how the Games have forged ahead regardless

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

IT WAS always going to be an Olympics unlike any other – postponed by a year thanks to a pandemic that put the world at peril, athletes pushing themselves to the limit in near-empty stadiums, masks covering the smiles of winners on the podium, frequent Covid tests deciding who would stay and who would go home.

“The Olympics are often billed as a slice of the globalised 21st-century world in miniature – humanity’s very best on display,” the Associated Press’ Ted Anthony says.

“But at Tokyo 2020, the entire affair instead has felt more like an industrial-strength clip reel of humanity’s past 18 months.”

In the days leading up to the Games, a fast-spreading resurgence of the virus saw authorities clamp down even harder to slow the spread as close to 130 people connected to the Olympics tested positive.

Calls for the Games to be scrapped grew louder as D-day approached, with polls showing the majority of Japanese people supported the cancellation of the sporting spectacle. Was it really worth risking the lives not only of 11 000 athletes but the entire island nation of Japan if Tokyo 2020 turned into a super-spreader event?

But go ahead it has. And the stark difference of a Games blighted by a pandemic was obvious in the pared-down opening ceremony, usually a heady highlight of the tournament with capacity crowds watching the cream of the world’s athletes enter the arena.

The 68 000-seater Olympic Stadium had fewer than 1 000 spectators, mostly dignitaries and government officials, while during the sporting events only athletes, officials and press were in attendance.