After a year's postponement and amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, it's hard to believe that a little more than 11,000 athletes around the globe are descending on Tokyo for the Olympics, with the opening ceremony set for Friday.
But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Tokyo organizers have pushed through, and on Friday they have an opportunity with the opening ceremony to set a tone for the Games that can address the hardships the world and residents of Japan have faced. Not everyone will be able to support the Games going on—a survey released in Japan in May suggested 83 percent of residents opposed the Games being staged this summer—but going on they are.