TOKYO to BEIJING to PARIS to MILAN/CORTINA to LOS ANGELES

  

Sounds like one of my next world journeys, but those cities are the sites of the just completed Summer Olympics and to come Winter and Summer Olympics.  In any case, Paris and Milan are two of my most detested places to visits.  Why?  The gendarme and carabinieri seem unable to control pickpockets and thieves.  Mind you, Spain, other cities in Italy and even Costa Rica and Hanoi, Vietnam are not exactly safe either.

I previously reported that American marathoner Molly Seidl and the high jumping duo of Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) and Mutaz Essa (Qatar) were my most memorable.  Other great performances:

• 22-year old Luka Doncic (Slovenia) in basketball was exceptional, something I already saw from him in the NBA.  Plays for the Dallas Mavericks.

• 
  13-year old Sky Brown (UK) and 12-year old Kokona Hiraki (Japan) in skateboarding.  Sky was born in Japan but chose to represent the UK.  In the middle is Japan's Sakura Yosozumi, who won the gold medal.
• 30-year old Hidilyn Diaz (Philippines) for capturing the first gold medal ever for the country, in weightlifting.

• Alessandra Perilli and Gian Marco Berti in shooting, and Myles Amine in wrestling for San Marino (34,000 population) won medals.  This country thus won the most medals per million people with 88.4.  USA?  Only 0.3.  China?  Only 0.06.

• 
  Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito of Japan for becoming the first non-Chinese athletes to win gold in table tennis.
• COVID-19?
• Around 100 U.S. athletes chose not to be vaccinated, and six thereby missed Tokyo for testing positive:  Bradley Beal (basketball), Taylor Crabb (beach volleyball), Kara Eaker (gymnastics), Coco Gauff (tennis), Katie Lou Samuelson (3x3 basketball) and Bryson DeChambeau (golf).  They blew what could well have been their once in a lifetime opportunity.  
• 
  Jon Rahm got hit twice:
• When he was leading by six strokes in the June Memorial Golf Tournament going into the last day, he got news that he tested positive, and had to quit.
• He was in the midst of getting his second vaccine shot, but had missed it.
• Then, after a series of negatives after getting the second shot, he finished third in the British Open...but after the tournament, tested positive and was not allowed into Japan.
• 
  Among the other countries were the Czech Republic, which also lost six, one a coach.
• In Tokyo, 299 people associated with the Summer Olympics tested positive, 28 being athletes.
• According to the IOC, they performed 624,364 tests and had a positivity rate of 0.02%.  They felt that this would not be a superspreader event.
• However, Tokyo and Japan are in the midst of suffering from the most COVID-19 new cases ever.  Yet, this new high wave seems also true for various other countries throughout the Orient into Australia.

Watch the drones at the Tokyo Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony.  If you wish to see the whole show, NBC replays the event at 8PM EDT (2PM in Hawaii).

The number of athletes is limited because anyone who completed competing had to leave the Olympic Village within 48 hours.  Javelin thrower Kara Winger, who finished #17, was selected to be the final flag bearer.

La Marseillaise played during the traditional flag handover ceremony, with final notes coming from saxophonist/astronaut Thomas Pesquet, from the International Space Station.  Something like this was supposed to occur today in Paris.  But bad weather cancelled the chance.

The Paris Summer Olympics will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024.  This will their third time.  They beat out Los Angeles, which will host in 2028.  For Paris, golf will be continued, but no softball nor baseball.  The star of Paris will be Marianne, supposedly the national personification of France, with a flame formed in negative space by her hair.  The female figure serves as a homage to the 1900 Paris Summer Olympics, where females were allowed to participate for the first time.

Of course, in only a few months, first come the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, from February 4-20.  Events will be held in that city and towns in neighboring Hebei Province.  The first winter olympics for China.  The same Bird's Nest, known as the Beijing National Stadium, used for the 2008 Summer Olympics, will be utilized for the winter opening and closing ceremonies.  All 26 venues will run entirely on renewable energy.  This will be interesting because of the weather.  I usually avoid Beijing in February because of horrendous air pollution.  Guess the country will again shut down industry like they did in 2008, and try to minimize home coal use to keep warm.

Four years later in 2026 will come the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, the fourth for Italy:

Then in 2028 the Los Angeles Summer Olympics:

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