TOKYO -- The Tokyo Olympics, christened with "2020" but held in mid-2021 after being interrupted for a year by the coronavirus, glided to their conclusion in a COVID-emptied stadium Sunday night as an often surreal mixed bag for Japan and for the world.
A rollicking closing ceremony with the theme "Worlds We Share" -- an optimistic but ironic notion at this human moment -- featured everything from stunt bikes to intricate light shows as it tried to convey a "celebratory and liberating atmosphere" for athletes after a tense two weeks. It pivoted to a live feed from Paris, host of the 2024 Summer Games. And with that, the strangest Olympic Games on record closed their books for good.
Held in the middle of a resurging pandemic, rejected by many Japanese and plagued by months of administrative problems, these Games presented logistical and medical obstacles like no other, offered up serious conversations about mental health -- and, when it came to sport, delivered both triumphs and a few surprising shortfalls.
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said he'd worried that these could "become the Olympic Games without a soul." But, he said, "what we have seen here is totally different."
"You were faster, you went higher, you were stronger because we all stood together -- in solidarity," Bach told gathered Olympians as he closed the Games. "This was even more remarkable given the many challenges you had to face because of the pandemic. In these difficult times, you give the world the most precious of gifts: hope."
"For the first time since the pandemic began," he said, "the entire world came together."
Japan's fourth Olympics, held 57 years after the 1964 Games reintroduced the country after its World War II defeat, represented a planet trying to come together at a moment in history when disease and circumstance and politics had splintered it apart.
The closing ceremony Sunday reflected that -- and, at times, nudged the proceedings toward a sci-fi flavor. As athletes stood in the arena for the final pomp, digital scoreboards at either end of the stadium featured what organizers called a "fan video matrix," a Zoom call-like screen of videos uploaded by spectators showing themselves cheering at home.
Even the parade of athletes carrying national flags -- thousands of Olympians, masked and unmasked, clustering together before fanning out into the world again -- was affected. Volunteers carried some flags into the stadium, presumably because of rules requiring athletes to leave the country shortly after their events concluded.
While Tokyo is handing off the Summer Games baton to Paris for 2024, the delay has effectively crammed two Olympics together. The next Winter Games convenes in just six months in another major Asian metropolis -- Beijing, Japan's rival in East Asia and home to a much more authoritarian government that is expected to administer its Games in a more draconian and restrictive way, virus or no virus.
Beyond that, Paris organizers promised Sunday to "take sport out of its traditional spaces" and "connect with new audiences in new ways" in 2024 -- presuming, of course, the absence of a protracted pandemic. They went live from the closing to excited groups of fans clustered near the Eiffel Tower, a crowded public scene that Tokyo didn't allow.
As the cauldron was snuffed out Sunday night after the Pandemic Olympics concluded, it's easy to argue that Tokyo can take its place as a Games that didn't fail -- as one that overcame a lot to even happen at all. And as vaccines roll out, variants emerge and lockdowns reemerge, another city and government -- Beijing, the Chinese capital -- must grapple with the very same question.
In the meantime, the program for Tokyo's closing ceremony, outlining its "Worlds We Share" theme, captured the effect of the pandemic and the virtual worlds and separation anxiety to which it has given birth.
"We are in a new normal, and this edition of the Games were a different affair," it said. "Even if we cannot be together, we can share the same moment. And that is something that we will never forget."