TOKYO – Tokyo pitched itself as "a safe pair of hands” when it was awarded the Olympics 7 1/2 years ago. “The certainty was a crucial factor," Craig Reedie, an IOC vice president at the time, said after the 2013 vote in Buenos Aires.
Now, nothing is certain as Tokyo's postponed Olympics hit the 100-days-to-go mark on Wednesday. Despite surging cases of COVID-19, myriad scandals and overwhelming public opposition in Japan to holding the Games, organizers and the IOC are pushing on.
Tokyo's 1964 Olympics celebrated Japan's rapid recovery from defeat in World War II. These Olympics will be marked by footnotes and asterisks.