for the washington post barry flueger in tokyo, hi. lovely to see you. these olympics, they were delayed, deemed to be unpopular, now executed in very unusual conditions. how has it been in japan so far? well, i think despite all the hand-wringing and worrying beforehand, the hope was that when the games actually began that athletes would lift them to the heights that we normally see. that s been true in terms of the sporting competition across the board. but it is a very, very strange environment here. i was at the swimming this morning, where as you mentioned emma mckeon made history, as did other athletes there. that concluded a week-long meet in which these athletes performed before no fans. they had to rely on their teammates in the stands to create any sort of atmosphere. it was almost like being at a high school meet or something like that. because there was no there s 18,000 seats there, and no one filling them. that s kind of in a way defining