Tokyo (AFP)

Before handing over to Paris for the next Games in 2024, the Tokyo Olympics will end Sunday with a last day of competition, during which the French handball players will try to follow in the footsteps of their male counterparts.

Like a symbol, the 16th and last day of these atypical Games began with a marathon.

And a recital, that of Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, now double Olympic champion of this legendary event after his triumph in Rio.

The Kenyan, figurehead of the Nike equipment manufacturer and the only man in the world to have descended under two hours on the 42.195 km distance - but during an unauthorized commercial attempt - will have been one of the only stars of the sport to assume its status in Japan.

Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge after his victory in the Tokyo Olympic Games marathon on August 8, 2021 in Sapporo Giuseppe CACACE AFP

In a few hours, the Olympic flame will go out.

After a decade of preparation, a year of postponement, months of uncertainties and two weeks of competition, the Games of the XXXII Olympiad will close where they started, on July 23, at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.

They will finally have stood, almost as if nothing had happened.

Once again, Olympism and its brain, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), will have succeeded in their bet, despite the reluctance - or even the opposition - of part of the Japanese population.

Despite the fear linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the variants of which still hold most of the planet in concern, the capital competition of world sport will have, as usual, given birth to champions (339 titles awarded to the total), emotions, exploits, failures, and images - even almost without an audience in the stands - which will have made it possible to satisfy the TV broadcasters, other project managers of the meeting.

- 0.02% of positive cases -

The government and the various Japanese authorities feared a deterioration in the health situation in the country, and if it did indeed tighten during the fortnight, the contamination figures observed within the Olympic bubble (0.02% of cases positive on average each day) showed that the measures taken had effectively prevented any clustering within the Olympic Village.

The 68,000 foreigners (athletes, managers, media) - against 200,000 in normal times - who came to Japanese soil were therefore able to observe two almost normal weeks of competition, apart from the transport and trade restrictions put in place by the IOC.

In the end, the Tokyo Games will therefore go down in history more like the Games during which the issue of mental health was essential, than like those of the pandemic.

Simone Biles, one of the stars expected of the fortnight, will have involuntarily been the standard.

By revealing to the world his torments, the gymnastics superstar opened the discussion on all the forms of mental pressure that athletes undergo, often from an early age.

And even for seasoned champions, success won't do everything.

- "It's terrifying" -

"There is so much pressure (...) It's completely crazy. I did not tell myself during the competition, but with hindsight, it's terrifying", confided the American swimmer Caeleb Dressel, five medals gold in Tokyo.

But the pressure and the thirst for fame are not quite over.

There are more than ten titles to be awarded before the closing ceremony (8:00 p.m. local, 1:00 p.m. French), and some great challenges to take up.

For France, it will be especially that of French handball players, in the final against Russia, under a neutral flag.

French handball player Allison Pineau during the semi-final of the Tokyo Olympic Games against Sweden on August 6, 2021 Franck FIFE AFP / Archives

At 3:00 p.m. local (8:00 a.m. French), Allison Pineau and her teammates will try to do as well as their male counterparts, Olympic champions on Saturday for the third time since 2008. They will also try to take advantage of the collective momentum generated by the triumph of the volleyball players and the generosity of basketball players, only stopped by "Team USA" during a fiery Saturday for French sport.

© 2021 AFP