Tokyo doused its Olympic flame on Sunday in a ceremony that echoed the restraint of a Games held without spectators and transformed by the global pandemic, dazzling sport and deeply person turmoil.
After postponing the Tokyo 2020 Games for a year, organisers said the event would serve as a symbol of world triumph over the pandemic. But with strict pandemic countermeasures and as Covid-19 variants have surged back around the world, the Olympics fell short of the triumph and financial windfall Japan had wanted.
The ceremony, although lustreless, gave athletes something of a glimpse of everyday Tokyo life as the Olympic Stadium was transformed into a park with grass, buskers and BMX riders.
The scene was meant so the visitors could “experience Tokyo”, organisers said, a poignant reminder of the many restrictions of the Games.
It was a duly odd ending to an unprecedented event. Japan is now saddled with a $15 billion (€12.8 billion) bill, double what it initially expected, and with no tourist boom.
The president of the International Olympic Committee thanked the Japanese people and acknowledged the difficulty of staging the Games during the pandemic.
“For the first time since the pandemic began, the entire world came together,” Thomas Bach said. “Nobody has ever organised a postponed Games before.”