"Sekai wa itsuka hitotsu ni naru" (「世界はいつかひとつになる」) — that's what "And the world will be as one," from John Lennon's "Imagine," sounds like in Japanese, at least according to the Asahi Shimbun. The matter arises in connection with the dai sanjukkai orinpikku kyogitaikai (第三十回オリンピック競技大会, 30th Olympiad), during whose heikaishiki (閉会式, closing ceremony) "Imagine" was featured. Is the world one? Imagine — all 204 member countries and regions of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) participated. The politically motivated boycotts of yesteryear were distant memories, if not forgotten altogether. From the athletes there was some tweeted jinshu sabetsu (人種差別, racism) which immediately went viral and earned their perpetrators prompt expulsion. So much for that.

Imagine spending $14.5 billion on an extravaganza that addresses, let alone solves, none of the world's myriad festering problems, from rising temperatures to falling prosperity, from rising international tensions (over islands, over nukes) to failing mechanisms of international cooperation (the United Nations Security Council's impotence over Syria, for instance). Imagine it seeming worth it. London satisfied the world it was. IOC President Jacques Rogge put it this way: "In many ways London brought the Olympics back to life" ("Rondon wa ōku no imi de gorin wo yomigaeraseta" 「ロンドンは多くの意味で五輪を蘇えらせた」). If by that he meant the Olympic spirit, then someday the world may indeed be as one, unlikely though the prospect may seem at present and most of the time.

So many milestones — where to begin? Some 10,000 senshutachi (選手たち, athletes) from 204 countries and regions competed in 302 shumoku (種目, events). Imagine the very first Olympic competitors in 776 BC in Olympia, Hellas (today's Greece) trying to imagine that. Two hundred ninety-three of the athletes in London were Japanese, and they won 38 medals — seven gold (kin nana ko, 金七個), 14 silver (gin jūyon ko, 銀十四個) and 17 bronze (dō jyūnana ko, 銅十七個) — making them medaru sōsū wa sekai rokui (メダル総数は世界六位, sixth place in terms of the total number of medals) and kin medaru sū wa sekai jūi (金メダル数は世界十位, 10th place in terms of the number of gold medals). Japan's medal haul was kako saita (過去最多, the most ever), beating by one its previous high of 37 at Athens in 2004.