![]() ![]() That empty host stadium cost $1.3bn (£0.9bn). ![]() The insistence on these transcendent qualities springs from the burden the Games place on those sleeted to host and fund it. Questions like, what is the Olympics actually for? Why, exactly, are we doing this? The Olympic Games still likes to style itself as “a movement”, an arm of international relations, a force for fellowship and joy, as opposed to, say, a heavily branded corporate circus. This give us faith in the future.” Does it though? As ever these occasions tend to pose other questions. Sport returned to centre stage … This gives us hope. For the first time since the pandemic began the entire world came together. This is a powerful message of solidarity and peace. “At the same time you were living together in peace. “You were competing fiercely with each other in pursuit of Olympic gold,” Bach went on. The display of disaffection was orderly but assertive, marking the anger many people have felt at the staging of this global event in a city where the line between contagion and control is already stretched thin. Outside the stadium there were protests in the streets and cries of “No Olympics” as the delegates, wonks and team members left the show at the end. Tokyo has been a warm, courteous and resourceful host, but also a troubled one. But for all the usual peace stuff, the unity stuff, there was an added urgency here as Bach used his closing notes to apply the IOC gloss to the way these Games in the time of plague will be remembered. You were stronger because we all stood together in solidarity.” There is a weary Olympic bingo to these platitudes, these join-the-dots uplifting statements. “You created the magic of these Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020.
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