Tokyo’s Olympics trial
EVEN THE BEST-LAID PLANS WERE NO MATCH FOR 2020.
When TIME sat down with Yuriko Koike in late 2019, Tokyo’s governor was exuberant in anticipation of the approaching Olympic and Paralympic Games. She capped our interview in the city’s hulking Metropolitan Government Building with an impromptu tour of the rooftop viewing gallery, where tourists browsed caps and tees emblazoned with the Tokyo 2020 emblem. In a flash, Koike hopped a security barrier and sat at a yellow-and-black polka-dot piano to play a few bars of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Did you know this is Godzilla’s favorite building?” she teased.
The monster could hardly have done more damage to Tokyo than the pandemic. The Games have been postponed, tourists have been largely banished from the Japanese capital, and TIME’s conversation with Koike on Oct. 14 takes place at a socially distant 1,000 miles via Zoom. Yet her ardor remained undimmed as Koike discussed plans for the rescheduled Games set to run from July 23 to Aug. 8. “You can feel the power of sport is even stronger because of the current situation,” she said. “Tokyo 2020 will be symbolic to prove that people, all together from across the world, have defeated the virus.”
But at this point, that defeat is far from guaranteed. As of mid-December, the pandemic has claimed
