The decisive moment for victory in the 4×100 relay, when Eseosa Desalu passes the baton to Filippo Tortu for the last hundred metres (ph. Giancarlo Colombo/FIDAL).

Followed as never before by the television audience (despite the difficulties due to the market for broadcasting rights), they marked a record number of medals for Italian athletes, often thanks to unexpected names rather than the “favourites” on the eve of the event.

Forty medals won in spite of the difficulties caused by the anti-county restrictions that have forced the athletes, over the last eighteen months, to review their training programmes and have obliged them, during the most severe lockdown, to train in their backyard or in improvised gyms.

If the credit goes to the tenacity of coaches and technicians, as well as the will of individuals, we must consider the condition of sports facilities in Italy, which, as we know, is not the best but is constantly developing, as we see from the pages of Tsport and Sport&Impianti.

If credit is due to the men and women who have worked on Olympic preparation over the last five years, we must take the opportunity of this world success – and of the echo it will have on the general desire for sport – to strengthen the availability of resources to be employed in facilities.

In terms of design and technological capacity, we have all the necessary resources at home; indeed, the red track at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium is an Italian product whose technical qualities have contributed to the performance achieved in athletics.

In the issue 340 of Tsport we review the facilities that have seen the strangest Olympics in history, with empty stands and audiences from all over the world in front of the screens.

Go to the index of the Tokyo venues (in Italian only).