A year later than planned and with some unexpected turns along the way, Tokyo’s Olympic journey is over.
While it could never be the event it was first imagined to be, the local organisers saw Tokyo 2020 to its conclusion – despite a global pandemic, a 12-month delay, a local state of emergency and the bar on fans that came with it. No matter how successful a Games ends up being, and many who were present are suggesting the Japanese capital made the best of its heavily compromised opportunity in the past fortnight, few cities can ever look back on years of serene progress until the flame passes through. Still, in peacetime, none has endured the last-minute uncertainty that prefaced these Olympics.
Soon enough, as memories are banked and costs are tallied, the world’s attention will move as it always does to the next edition. As tens of thousands watched on video screens beneath the Eiffel Tower, where jets from the Patrouille de France flew overhead, the Olympic flag…