COVID-19 has compounded the stress for Tokyo and unique copyright owners the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

President Juan Antonio Samaranch, sponsor-wise, mounted the scaffolding of an even steeper sporting Mont Blanc; Jacques Rogge marked time. 

In 2014, Thomas Bach recognised, with "Agenda 2020", that administrative modernisation was essential. Yet the lust for inclusion by multiple fringe sports envious of the Olympic pay cheque has in the opinion of many inadvertently made the IOC and their Games too big for their own boots.

COVID-19 has set fire to the public relations camouflage: can Tokyo and the IOC financially withstand a postponement? Bach, ardent Olympian, is straining every financial sinew to protect Tokyo’s and Premier Abe’s face-saving ambitions. The odds, not least the as yet unpredictable world health mutations, remain ominous.

Confronting the hunger of both athletes – for the promise of participation in an occupation which adds nothing to global Gross Domestic Product beyond employment and climate-damaged tourism – and self-important federations, a lone voice shrieks for urgent rationality of economy and structure dimensions within the Olympic stampede: Guy Drut, French Olympic champion hurdler at Montreal 1976.

Supporting Drut’s demand, presciently published by insidethegames, is Gerhard Heiberg: mastermind of Lillehammer’s triumphant low-key Winter Games of 1994, subsequently IOC Executive Board brainbox and marketing chief and member of many commissions.

Norway, traditionally Scandinavian "cool", vainly sought to introduce economic coherence as would-be summer hosts in the 21^st century, ultimately frustrated as much by their own hesitant politicians as by IOC indifference. Heiberg remains trenchantly pragmatic.

Drut has asserted that contemporary Olympic administration has become "obsolete, outdated, disconnected from reality", that the current and future Games, while ideologically imperative in principle, "cannot stand at any cost" – and that forthcoming Games committees at Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Milan and LA should gather to establish revised criteria.

Heiberg, from a nation where moderation punctuates ambition, reflects: “I understand what Guy is saying,  after 1994, I believed it was possible to increase the numbers for a Winter Games, but sensed the Summer Games were already too big.

"I feel the same as Guy - let us now choose a fresh format, less big and complicated. It will be difficult, with so many new sports knocking at the door, but I think we should keep the number of sports to 28: the number of athletes for additional events as well as sports has continued to grow and maybe the time has come to say enough is enough.

"I sense there are huge risks for 2021, and I’m sure in the long term we need to do something to protect the Games’ future.  The timing now is right, the Games cannot continue to grow, sponsors are asking questions."

The dilemma facing Bach – as he attempts both to protect Tokyo’s investment and to sustain Olympic continuity through IOC allegiance to years of preparation by dedicated athletes – is similar to that of multiple Government leaders: how to balance the priorities between economics and global health.

The world’s medical scientists are treading in unknown territory with a new virus.  Expert opinions vary country to country.  

So what is the potential for spectators and/or athletes from impecunious nations with inferior health protection regulations, sending infected carriers of COVID-19 to crowded Tokyo venues and an Athletes Village where 11,000 share daily breakfast, lunch and dinner?  A renewed spike?

Will Tokyo medical surveillance scrutinise every Games visitor on arrival?  And at what cost?  Will some 200 global Governments allow free passage to and from an Olympic Games at which social separation will be impossible.  An Olympic festival is not just about athletes. 

Should the IOC ease Tokyo’s burden by limiting the gross number of athletes?  A valid, fool-proof vaccine might not yet be available.

Wise Olympic heads have reservation about global health a year hence.  Veteran Richard Pound of Canada, IOC doyen and Olympian swimming semi-finalist, acknowledges the inherent risks from a postponed Games.

“With Premier Abe seeking re-election, it is assumed Japan will accept the lion’s share of additional costs, thought to approach $3million (£2.4million/€2.7million), but we don’t know the exact thinking. Of course, there has to be the Village, but what facilities will be there?

"The modelling is already done for housing 11,000 athletes, but will the city be ready? The bigger risk is another virus spike, and prohibition of travel, while it is evident some International Federations (IFs) are living way beyond their means.

"There are signals of continuing negotiations on finance. For future Games {24-‘28} contracts are already in place, but there could be COVID-19 tailspin for Paris, maybe wishing to re-open their contract. 

"It is going to be a while before people will be willing globally to congregate.  What will be the attitude of authoritarian governmental health regulations?”

Anita DeFrantz, IOC vice-president, is cautious in her expectation on how the governing body will meet changes in evidence from the pandemic: she  is anxious not to rock the boat, to preserve and protect an institution to which she has given a life’s work, since being an Olympic oarswoman and then Village director at Los Angeles 1984.

What DeFrantz does not address is the IOC’s untoward embarrassment from the extent to which many IFs are irresponsibly too dependent for financial survival on their share of Olympic revenue – likely to be uncomfortably reduced in a postponed Games, if indeed that still happens.

“The IOC is always willing to adjust, to adapt, and I admit we don’t know what will even emerge next month. All things are possible. We have to be flexible, but we are doing our best that athletes should be able to compete."

DeFrantz, who distantly ran for the Presidency in 2001 yet will be too elderly at 73 to challenge in a lean field of contenders to succeed Bach in 2025, epitomises the virtues of the Olympic ethic: that subtle blend of elitism and universality. 

Yet she will be all too aware that COVID-19 portends a future within which tomorrow will never be the former "normal": a world of socially adjusted ambitions, for cities, industries, individuals, with essential lifestyle adjustment in our behaviour – for our own and climate’s survival.

So, should we be ready for austerity Olympics? It would be irrational for the IOC, post-coronavirus, to continue to chaperone host cities which may, as did Rio 2016, hover on the brink of incompetence. Did 2016 help resolve favella impoverishment? 

The perceived success of both Beijing 2008 and London 2012 is undermined by main stadia no longer being beacons of significant social aggrandisement. Where lies civic convenience in host cities repetitively obliged to re-invent the wheel: vastly expensive creation of four-day-event elite venues for say, white-water canoe, equestrian three-day event, climate-friendly regatta lakes? As Drut suggests, give surfing a permanent site in Hawaii.

The Olympic Games are fundamentally about emotional integration, not momentary technological exclusivity.