TOKYO -- With Sunday night's closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, Japan will turn the page on a global sporting event that took place despite the COVID-19 pandemic, overwhelming public opposition and a string of scandals involving Olympic officials.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to attend the closing ceremony in one of his final public appearances as Japan's head of government. Suga said Friday that he will step down this month. His government's insistence on pressing ahead with the quadrennial event amid the pandemic added to pressure for his resignation.
The Paralympics themselves generated little controversy, in contrast to the Olympics, and delivered several memorable moments.
Japanese volunteer Masaki Kando on Tuesday delivered a message to his son's hero, American high jumper Sam Grewe. Kando's family had purchased tickets for the men's high jump final on Tuesday, but the Paralympic ban on spectators kept them away.
In a letter to Grewe, Kando explained that his 13-year-old son had had surgery to remove part of his right leg after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma -- a type of bone cancer -- much like Grewe. Uncertainty over whether his son could live a normal life made Kando anxious, he wrote. "You gave great courage to my family," Kando told Grewe.
"Win or lose, this is what it's all about. This makes it all worth it," Grewe wrote on Twitter, where he posted a photo of the letter. He won gold in the T63 high jump event, adding to a third place finish for the U.S. with 37 gold medals. China led the field with 96 golds, followed by the U.K. with 41.
As the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics end, organizers hope that exchanges like the one between Kando and Grewe will be what the Games are remembered for. Determining Tokyo 2020's legacy will now fall to its successor, Paris 2024. "Tokyo set a new standard and we want to go one step further," CEO Etienne Thobois told Nikkei Asia.
Building on Tokyo 2020's hydrogen-powered venues, Paris 2024 organizers are aiming to host the first "carbon-negative" Games by offsetting more than its carbon budget of 1.5 million tons, which in turn is about half the estimated emissions from London 2012 and Rio 2016.
Thobois, who played badminton for France at the 1996 Atlanta Games, spent the final week of the Paralympics observing Tokyo 2020's operations. He singled out as a lesson the cost-cutting measures taken by Tokyo 2020, as the bill from the yearlong postponement pushed the budget for the Games to $12.6 billion.
"We will make savings thanks to that experience," said Thobois.
Tokyo will also be remembered for the debut of Afghanistan's first woman Paralympian, Zakia Khudadadi. The entry of Afghanistan's flag at the opening ceremony garnered applause in the nearly empty National Stadium, just a week after the country fell to the Taliban.
But in a show of international solidarity, governments issued humanitarian visas and waived quarantine requirements, allowing Zakia Khudadadi and Hossein Rasouli, the two athletes, to evacuate to Australia and train in Paris at France's high-performance camp. Japan and the International Paralympic Committee arranged their travel to Tokyo, where they arrived on time for the taekwondo and track competitions.
Tokyo 2020's Olympic-size costs also stand as a cautionary tale to potential sponsors, especially as businesses face uncertainty due to the pandemic. But Thobois said French companies have been eager to tie their brands to Paris 2024, even as Japanese sponsors distanced themselves from the unpopular Games in Tokyo.
"Every organizing committee had to adapt to political issues in some countries and the financial crisis," Thobois said. Thanks to Japan's adaptability, he added, "We don't have a wasted generation of athletes, and we also saw through the Tokyo Games that life goes on."
Additional reporting by Togo Shiraishi and Mailys Pene-Lassus in Paris.