Tokyo doused its Olympic flame on Sunday in a ceremony that echoed the restraint of a Games held without spectators and transformed by the global pandemic.

After postponing the Tokyo 2020 Games for a year, organisers said the event would serve as a symbol of world triumph over the pandemic. But with strict pandemic countermeasures and as COVID-19 variants have surged back around the world, the Olympics fell short of the triumph and financial windfall Japan had wanted.

- Reuters -