The athletes are in the Village and the world’s media has arrived, but for many in Japan, there’s little festive cheer just a day before the Olympics open in Tokyo.
There are no cheering foreign fans roaming the streets, and athletes are ferried from Village to venue in a bubble meant to keep them and the Japanese public safe from coronavirus.
Local spectators are barred from almost all Games venues, with only around 900 people expected to attend the opening ceremony at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium on Friday — just around 150 of them Japanese.
Little surprise then that many in Japan are struggling to detect much Olympic spirit in the final countdown to a Games that are finally taking place a year after becoming the first in modern history to be postponed.