TOKYO -- In the last days of the Olympics, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike spent her remaining time in the international spotlight touting her city's sustainable development and potential as an Asian financial center. Had all gone according to plan, a kinder, greener Games might have been Tokyo 2020's legacy.
Japan introduced several new initiatives that future Olympic hosts could emulate. At the athletes' village, food was supplied by farmers in Fukushima Prefecture, still recovering from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Beds and mattresses were made from recycled cardboard and fish nets. Hydrogen powered Olympic venues, as well as the Olympic flame. Metal for 5,000 medals was sourced from electronics recycled by Tokyo residents.
But as Japan now faces a worsening COVID-19 crisis, Koike and leaders in the national government appeared to dig for a deeper meaning as well.
The governor compared holding the Tokyo Games in the middle of a pandemic to the Antwerp Games of 1920, just two years after Belgium emerged from the ravages of World War I. "Overcoming all sorts of difficulties to succeed in the Games -- I think this will be the legacy of these Olympic Games," Koike told international media.
After Sunday's closing ceremony, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will have about two months before a general election to make amends with a population that largely opposed hosting the Olympics this year.
Opposition parties will try to fan the flames of Olympic dissent and remind voters that the sports spectacle coincided with daily COVID-19 infections in Tokyo surging to a record 5,000. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's own words could be used against him, particularly instructions to hospitals to accept only severely ill patients, which he later walked back. His declaration of a fourth state of emergency on Tokyo and other metropolises looks to have done little stem the spread of infections.
Japanese leaders long maintained that only the International Olympic Committee could have canceled the Games.
"For the IOC, it would have been the easier solution because we could have drawn then on insurance we had at the time, so the IOC would have been saving money," IOC President Thomas Bach said at a Friday news conference.
"There would have been no exposure, neither for Tokyo nor for Japan nor for the sponsors," Bach said.
None of those parties seem to have any hope of recouping their Olympic investments. Government auditors estimate the final bill will be over $20 billion, triple the original budget proposed by organizers. Without spectators in the stands, the Olympics could generate only 1.66 trillion yen ($15 billion) for the Japanese economy, according to Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at the Nomura Research Institute.
Corporate sponsors who raised $3 billion for the Games distanced themselves, pulling Olympic-related advertising and declining to send executives to the opening ceremony.
Marketing experts blame the "blanket of negativity" that surrounded the Games, including COVID-19 and Japanese public sentiment.
"There's hype, advance publicity and star power. All of those were working in the wrong direction for Tokyo," said Mike Holtzman, who worked on Beijing's bid for the 2008 Games.
"The one victory of Tokyo is the perseverance. It shows a lot of heart," said Holtzman. "Will it be the game changer for the city that Beijing 2008 or Tokyo 1964 was? No."