Saved by the sublime

 Maybe you haven't been watching, because of what the Bastard Plague and the greedy organizers have ruined. Maybe the Olympic Games are just background noise this time, because these are the Games of ghosts and echoes, the Games of athletes competing for themselves and their nations and not for the multitudes that aren't there.

The Tokyo Olympics are the Games of Bubble Wrap, going ahead despite a raging pandemic, despite the overwhelming opposition of a host nation that was foursquare against them.

But.

But what greedheads and reckless, incompetent bureaucrats do their best to ruin, the athletes always redeem.

And so the face of these Olympics belong to Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy, who chose to share the gold medal in the men's high jump after tying for first place.

The face of these Olympics belongs to Tahani Alqahtani of Saudi Arabia, who defied an unofficial boycott by competing against her Israeli opponent after many athletes from Arab nations refused to compete against Israelis.

It belongs to the irrepressible Tom Daley of Great Britain, gold medalist in synchronized diving and hero of knitters everywhere, who crocheted a Union Jack bag for his medal and has been hard at work on a sweater for his dog during the diving competition.

It belongs, yes, to Simone Biles, the greatest women's gymnast of all time, who did what was best for her and her team despite the scorn of meatheads everywhere -- and who overcame her "twisties" to win a bronze medal in the vault, a display of courage the meatheads could dream of duplicating.

The face of these Olympics belongs to the medalists, the non-medalists, the ones who understand and exemplify the Olympic creed better than any of the greedheads who put on the Games every four years. It belongs to Flora Duffy of Bermuda, who won the women's triathlon to deliver her nation's first-ever gold medal; for weightlifterHidilyn Diaz of the Phillipines, who did the same for her nation; for Alessandro Perilli of San Marino, whose bronze in women's trapshooting was the first ever medal for her tiny nation in 61 years of Olympic competition.

The face of these Games belongs to sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya of Belarus, whose own Olympic committee tried to force her to fly home after she criticized her nation's thuggish regime. And it belongs to the Japanese government, which refused to let it happen.

The athletes always redeem everything, no matter how ham-fisted everyone around them conspires to be. One way or another, they redeem everything.