TOKYO – In the stadiums there were no crowds and yet you could hear the crackle. Eleven thousand athletes, toned and energetic, in one place had turned Tokyo into one vast power plant. And to be inside the Olympics was to feel plugged into it. It was a rush and a buzz, it was bruising and breathless. Gymnasts flew, so did sweat and Novak Djokovic’s racket in disgust.
Sportswriters chewed on free Meiji chocolates and hammered out the first drafts of history. But perhaps, like Wimbledon once, the Olympics deserve an official poet. The 14-year-old diver Quan Hongchan deserved to be captured in verse and on the uneven bars Belgium’s gold medallist Nina Derwael warranted an art critic. “I think I am still dreaming,” she said.
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