Opinion: Against all odds, Japan welcomes world again for Olympic Games

As the world prepares for the most unusual Summer Olympics in history, it’s fitting that Tokyo is the place those Games will be held. 

This is a city that knows Olympic uncertainty. It knows the heartbreak of forfeiting one Olympics and having another postponed. It knows all about re-introducing itself to the world simply by hosting the Games. And it knows the importance of the symbolism that comes when the largest peacetime gathering of the world finally takes place.

“They find a way,” said U.S. swimming legend Donna de Varona, who won her two Olympic gold medals as a 17-year-old at the 1964 Tokyo Games. “They always find a way.”

Tokyo was ready to host the 2020 Summer Olympics when the Games were suddenly postponed four months before they were due to begin as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe.