Factor in the global pandemic and a local population broadly outraged that this goes ahead with their city under state of emergency restrictions and Tokyo right now must feel like the world’s loneliest theme park. Claims that the economic benefits to a host city will outweigh the costs almost always amount to self-serving nonsense. Those Games are remembered today, above all, for that crude bomb going off in Centennial Park, killing two people. On the eve of those Games, I wrote: “In a forgetful world, the Games make perfect sense. But the Tokyo Olympic Games have run up a bill that could, it is feared, soar beyond €24 billion.

Source: Irish Independent July 24, 2021 01:30 UTC