Amid bright blue skies the Olympic flame arrived at Matsushima Air Base in Miyagi Prefecture on Friday morning, having been flown nearly 6,000 miles from Athens aboard an aircraft called 'Tokyo 2020 Go' following its symbolic lighting at the temple of Hera in Ancient Olympia.
As far as much of the rest of the world is concerned, the flame has already gone out.
The Premier League, Euro 2020, the NBA, the Masters and so many more of the world's great sporting events have succumbed to the coronavirus pandemic, but the biggest of them all is still defiantly scheduled to start on July 24, despite the increasingly widespread disbelief that this is possible.