Tens of thousands of visiting athletes, officials and media are descending on Japan for a Summer Olympics unlike any other.
There will be no foreign fans, no local fans in Tokyo-area venues.
A surge of virus cases has led to yet another state of emergency, and a local vaccination campaign is struggling to keep up.
As athletes and their entourages arrive, they’ll be confined to a bubble. Government minders and GPS will try to track visitors’ every move; booze will be curtailed or banned, and, through it all, there will be the inescapable knowledge of the suffering COVID-19 has brought here and around the world.
It will all add up to an utterly surreal Olympics.