Tokyo's Olympics Trial.

When TIME sat down with Yuriko Koike in late 2019, Tokyo's governor was exuberant in anticipation of the approaching Olympic and Paralympic Games. Airline travel has cratered, meaning simply getting the 15,490 Olympic and Paralympic athletes from 206 nations and territories to Tokyo is a significant hurdle--let alone the 500,000 spectators originally forecast to cheer on the 339 different events. "This is a high-stakes game for Prime Minister Suga", says Mieko Nakabayashi, a former lawmaker and current professor at Waseda University's School of Social Sciences in Tokyo. In what was touted as a major test, Tokyo hosted its first international sporting event since the pandemic began on Nov. 8, and Yokohama baseball stadium has held games with a near-capacity 30,000 spectators. [Extracted from the article]