Filled with doubt, division and Covid, Tokyo braces for Olympics

After a year’s delay, the Games begin this week. But it is an event that few in a fearful host nation now want as infections rise again

The joy and anticipation that greeted the International Olympic Committee’s decision in 2013 to award the 2020 Games to Tokyo feels like it belongs in another age, let alone a different decade.

With less than a week to go before Jill Biden and fewer than 1,000 VIPs watch the lighting of the Olympic cauldron at an otherwise empty main stadium, the people of the host nation are bracing themselves for a Games that few want, and which many fear will leave a public health legacy that overshadows achievements in the sporting arena.