Following a year like no other, Alex Hughes, the ITF’s Senior Manager – Olympics, Paralympics and Multi-Sports Games, considers the past 12 months and the logistical mountain that Tokyo 2020 organisers have had to climb as the ITF team head off for the Olympic Tennis Event.

Ipsedixitism. One of my favourite words. It describes asserting an opinion as fact without any real supporting evidence. It’s possible I do this more than I should (I come from an argumentative family where it’s exercised, fittingly, on Olympian levels).

I’ve certainly indulged in some historical ipsedixitism regarding the Olympic and Paralympic Games, regularly pronouncing them the single biggest logistical challenge undertaken globally every four years. However, for once, with Tokyo, I might be onto something.

There’s certainly never been a Games like Tokyo 2020 and as a stand-alone logistical achievement (yet to be delivered, admittedly), I’m really struggling to muster a serious challenger.

Where to start? Eleven years from the start of the bidding process. Seven years of construction, planning, and preparations. The equivalent of holding 46 individual world championships, at the same time, all (almost) inside one city, all at different venues, and all within 16 days.

Now fly in 11,000 athletes from every country in the world, add a further 20,000 for their entourage, 25,000 media, 80,000 volunteers, plus a similar number of security, not to mention us, the international federations and all the technical officials we bring. Everyone wants accommodation, transport, food… and everything to run smoothly.

And when it’s all done and dusted and you’ve got your thumb on the cork, you do it all again three weeks later when the Paralympic Games get underway.

Anyone who’s worked a Games will tell you there’s never been an “easy” delivery, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it. And Tokyo had it all in hand. They were ready, described as the best-prepared in history, set to deliver a sumo-sized Games-extravaganza to out-do them all.

And then, as we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic struck and the world was turned upside down in devastating fashion.

After a short period of evaluation, the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 moved remarkably quickly in announcing the Games would be postponed and take place exactly one year later and begin with the Olympic Opening Ceremony on 23 July

It sounded simple but what it actually represented was a commitment of, perhaps appropriately, Mount Olympus proportions. It had never been done before, never been realistically considered before, there was no blueprint and nobody really knew if it was possible.

The scale and ambition of what Tokyo 2020 committed to with that announcement is impossible to convey meaningfully. I’ve spent 15 years working on Olympic and Paralympic Games and I have no idea how they’ve got to within touching distance of delivering these Games. 

I could list off the challenges, but the Games would be over before I’d finished and I’d not get close to doing it justice. The plain facts are Tokyo set out to unpack seven years of planning and piece it all back together in a single year, all at a time when the world was almost completely shut down and all within the added new framework of covid-safety measures.

There have been myriad personal frustrations this past year, and if the summit of Mount Olympus has been the goal, then at times it’s felt quite Sisyphean in our efforts to get there.

But here we are, a matter of days away from boarding the plane and the usual tingle of excitement and nerves (there’s some fear in there too but we’re playing it cool) is building once again.

At this stage, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that alongside that tingle of excitement is a layer of doubt. The concerns of the Japanese public have been widely reported, and it’s sometimes hard to reconcile our roles and participation against that backdrop.

I hope, and must believe, that come September the domestic audience, and the world at large, will have enjoyed and embraced two sporting miracles safely delivered.

The biggest logistical sporting challenge ever? Ipsedixitism? Maybe just this once, the dictionary can stay closed.

This article features in the summer 2021 edition of ITFWorld, a 44-page digital magazine that is available to read for free here. The latest issue is a preview to the Olympic and Paralympic Games and is packed with exclusive content, interviews and features.