The most unusual Summer Olympic Games in history are now just two and a half months away. As Tokyo prepares to host the first-ever postponed Olympics, an unsettling realization has fallen upon the Games’ stakeholders: they are in for a restrained, rule-laden and austere experience very much in keeping with the world’s earliest and strictest pandemic precautions prior to the emergence of the vaccines.
This will be nothing like any previous Summer Games, according to 11 officials, coaches and other experts interviewed by USA TODAY Sports. To win a gold medal, or even to just get to the starting line, athletes will have to navigate a maze of detailed rules and regulations that threaten to drain the life out of much of their Olympic experience.