Golden glow as sun sets on Tokyo
The improbable Olympics turned out to be impossible to forget. The final act of Tokyo 2020’s closing ceremony, the petal-panels of a spherical cauldron extinguishing the flame like shutting a flower, was in keeping with the mood of these Games: haunting, understated, and yet strangely beautiful.
Bringing 206 nations together during a pandemic, in one of the world’s most densely populated cities? Science suggested it should never be attempted, and yet somehow it happened: the ghost Games, eerily bereft of fans but salvaged by the stoicism of the hosts and the luminous talent of more than 10,000 athletes.
Among them were the allconquering couple of British cycling. While a seventh gold medal for Jason Kenny, courtesy of a dramatic victory in the keirin, confirmed him as the nation’s most decorated Olympian, his wife Laura, a five-time champion, had the honour of carrying the flag into the Olympic Stadium.
The atmosphere she encountered was one of giddy relief, as hundreds of competitors weary of draconian Covid restrictions took their lone chance to savour an authentic Tokyo experience. Sympathetic to that urge, organisers transformed the stadium floor into a miniature park, criss-crossed by buskers and BMX riders, giving athletes some sense of the metropolis from which they had been cocooned. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, struck his usual note of triumphalism. “We did it,” he declared. “Billions of people around the globe were united by emotion, sharing moments of joy and inspiration. This gives us faith in the future. These are the Olympics of hope, solidarity and peace.”
Bach can be insufferably grandiose at times, but his core message about the electrifying power of sport was hard to dispute. Even when cut off from their families, the faces of the Tokyo Games have produced indelible displays of fortitude and flair. Norway’s Karsten Warholm ran the 400m hurdles in a time faster than most
British men this year have managed on the flat. Tom Daley channelled the frustration of all his Olympic nearmisses to claim a stunning gold in the synchronised diving.
For Team GB, the haul of precious metal was more lavish than they had dared to expect. Despite fraught preparations, and a notably less Soviet-style approach to winning at all costs, they wound up with 65 medals, equalling their collection at London 2012. To emerge from the chaos of Covid with 22 golds, marking the country’s second most successful Olympic campaign on foreign soil, was an achievement worth trumpeting.
“This team has shown that even in the most difficult circumstances, sport brings people together and changes lives,” Boris Johnson said. “You have shown grace in victory and amazing courage in defeat. And while you may not have heard the roar of the crowd in Tokyo, every one of you has given us a reason to cheer back home.”
The sport proved thrillingly unpredictable. Take the men’s 100m final, the Olympics’ unmissable centrepiece, won by Lamont Marcell Jacobs, a Texas-born Italian who had not even broken 10 seconds three months ago. Or take the women’s gymnastics, where Simone Biles had expected to dominate but withdrew from all but one of her events, citing mental health struggles. It was a decision that detonated a profound shock across sport, as a young woman famed for her poise on a 4in-wide balance beam revealed her vulnerability to the world.
Fittingly for an Olympics like no other, precedents were broken in the least expected ways. The involvement of New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, the first openly transgender weightlifter, prompted concerns that she was undermining fair competition. Instead, she finished last in her final, having failed to complete a single lift. Elsewhere, there was memorable sportsmanship, not least when Mutaz Essa Barshim shared his high jump gold with Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi.
The sadness, naturally, was that no fans could be present to share these emotions. Bach was mistaken when he argued that you did not notice the emptiness of many venues. Spectators have never felt so conspicuous by their absence. There was no more heartrending scene than the ghostly, abandoned fan zone beside Tokyo Bay, symbolising all that the people of Japan were denied.
The IOC had been desperate to project Tokyo 2020 as the end of the Covid tunnel, the occasion of humanity’s vanquishing of the virus. Fortunately, not even Bach had the gall to make that argument. Covid protocols have been ubiquitous in Tokyo, from five-hour airport checks to close contacts sent into a fortnight’s hotel quarantine even if they tested
‘While you may not have heard the roar of the crowd in Tokyo, every one of you has given us a reason to cheer back home’
negative each day. On the surface, the system was successful. From 571,000 tests conducted on accredited personnel, the positivity rate was 0.02 per cent. But the long-term judgment on these Olympics will be complex. The raptures that they brought for an international audience must be balanced against the cruel deprivations for Tokyo residents. They still lined the streets around the stadium last night, longing for one distant glimpse of a party to which they were not invited. A fireworks display off the roof, after the flame had flickered its last, was about all they could make out.
For all its manifest flaws, Tokyo 2020 did offer a compelling rebuke to fatalism. It would have been far simpler to cancel the Games, to hold out for Paris 2024. But that would have been to strip most athletes of their only tilt at glory. These Olympics were staged for their benefit, and they repaid their side of the bargain with interest.
Whether by luck or judgment, the gamble worked. Arigato was the one word left on the giant screens at the end, Japanese for “thank you”. It was an affirmation that, even in the most precarious times, sport, indeed life itself, must go on.