Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bit the bullet last week and decided, after consultations with the International Olympic Committee to pull the plug on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The games have been postponed, not canceled; their eventual date has not yet been decided and depends, primarily, on when the new coronavirus outbreak is under control. If, as anticipated, they are held next year, the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics will be the most important and most celebrated Olympic Games ever.

Financial considerations reportedly weighed heavily on the decision, with the Japanese hosts and the IOC worried that a unilateral move would risk billions of dollars in liabilities falling on the deciding party. Both had to act together to ensure that neither would get the blame.

Both will still pay a high price for delay. The cost of the games is an exercise in accounting legerdemain. The official cost is said to be ¥ 1.35 trillion, but reports suggest that national government outlays, supposedly just 10 percent of the total, are actually 10 times the budgeted amount. One audit put the projected cost at $25 billion, or twice the original budget.