THE SHOW MUST GO ON

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