“An Olympics is a certain interval, it describes four years of programming, sacrifices, ambitions of athletes from all over the world. These, instead, were Games consumed on a lopsided date for the first time: postponed when the world stopped for the virus, they risked to disappear permanently.”(la Repubblica)
A special and unique edition of the last Olympics, in fact for the first time in history was held in an odd year, in 2021. According to the four-year Olympic calendar, they were to be held in 2020 but, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they were postponed for a year and, amid controversy, confirmation, and denial, in the end, the XXXII edition of the Olympic Games was held from 23 July to 8 August, for a total of 17 days of competitions, followed by the Paralympics, scheduled from 24 August to 5 September 2021. Despite this time change, the logo remained the same with the indication of 2020, as well as the wording remains Olympic Games 2020. The Land of the Rising Sun has returned for the second time to host athletes from all over the world after having already been home to the Olympics in 1964. As said at the opening, these Olympics have marked history both because of their postponement but also because of the huge results found by Italian athletes (Azzurri), which manage to almost double the number of medals taken home in the previous Olympic Games of Rio 2016; Tokyo 2020 is the new watershed of the blue Olympic sport, with the record of podiums that was neither matched nor surpassed by Rome 1960, counting 40 total medals in 19 different disciplines, including 10 gold, 10 silver and 20 bronzes, thus placing in the 10th place among the countries with the most medals won in the last Olympics. The specialties in which Italy was particularly distinguished in these Olympics were swimming and fencing to stand out for the number of laurels (7 and 5), but with athletics to be the queen of results: 5 gold on 5 podiums. Tokyo 2020 has literally shattered the successes of the ancient Olympics, and, in addition to the total number of medals won, has scored other records, including that of the number of bronzes (20) obtained and that of the disciplines to medal: 19 against the 17 of Athens 2004, the previous.
Clearly, the whole of Italy hopes that it is not an exception but a trend, since above all in Tokyo there was the rebirth of athletics, the sport emblem of the Olympic Games, where in the past the country had achieved some important success, but never as in Japan. There is little to say, the final cover of Tokyo 2020 is the embrace between the first two Italian gold in athletics of this edition, Gianmarco Tamberi in the high jump and Marcell Jacobs in the 100m, thus giving us two incredible stories and two historical golds at a distance of just a few minutes from each other. Jacobs’ performance was undoubtedly the most anticipated of all, as no Italian before, he had made it to the final, no Italian had succeeded; performance with which he not only won the gold but also established the new European record, thus becoming its new holder. As regards Tamberi, his revenge was real, and he was the example of an athlete who never gave up, whose career seemed to be over, after a tragic injury in 2016 due to which he had to say goodbye to the Olympics in Rio.
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