When Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Summer Olympics at a meeting in Buenos Aires nearly eight years ago, members of the Japanese delegation hugged one another and screamed with joy. Some were so happy they started to cry. In Tokyo, where it was 5 a.m., a group of 1,200 dignitaries and athletes at a convention hall erupted into cheers.
"The joy was even greater than when I won my own election," Shinzo Abe, then Japan's prime minister, said at the time.
Now, after a yearlong delay, those long-awaited Summer Olympics are quickly approaching, with the opening ceremony just a little more than two months away.