In a first, Mike Tirico will host NBC Olympics' primetime coverage from an outdoor location in Tokyo this summer.
The torch relay for the Tokyo Olympics ran through a mostly empty Osaka city park on Tuesday, showing the risks of trying to hold the postponed games during a pandemic. It came on the same day that the government said new coronavirus cases in Osaka hit 1,099, a single-day record for Japan's second largest metropolitan area. The torch relay began three weeks ago in northeastern Japan, attempting to navigate around the pandemic with a total of 10,000 runners crisscrossing the country and bound for the opening ceremony on July 23 in Tokyo.
The global reduction in travel and human contact over the last year may have played an important role in battling Covid-19 but it has added a new layer of complexity to fighting the doping cheats ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.