Yasuhiro Yamashita, president of the Japan Olympic Committee, knows a thing or two about Olympics-grade frustration.
After qualifying for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the judo heavyweight had to watch from the stands as a spectator, while top rivals vied for the gold. He couldn’t compete because Japan had pulled out of the games, joining an international boycott protesting the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
As the leader of Japan’s Olympics team, Yamashita is now dealing with another historic dilemma: a delayed Olympics mired in uncertainty because of a pandemic. There’s still a debate over whether the games should be held, the likelihood that overseas spectators won’t be allowed to attend and many unanswered questions about quarantines, contact tracing and vaccinations. All of this hangs over the event, just four short months before the torch is lit in Tokyo’s National Stadium.