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. Tom Daley channelled the frustration of all his Olympic near-misses to claim a stunning gold in the synchronised diving.įor Team GB, the haul of precious metal was more lavish than they had dared to expect. Norway’s Karsten Warholm ran the 400m hurdles in a time faster than most British men this year have managed on the flat. Even when cut off from their families, the faces of the Tokyo Games have produced indelible displays of fortitude and flair. These are the Olympics of hope, solidarity and peace.”īach can be insufferably grandiose at times, but his core message about the electrifying power of sport was hard to dispute. “Billions of people around the globe were united by emotion, sharing moments of joy and inspiration. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, struck his usual note of triumphalism. 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.
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.
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 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.īringing 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 over 10,000 athletes.Īmong them were the all-conquering couple of British cycling. An Olympics improbable to stage turned out to be impossible to forget.
0 kommentar(er)
