Meanwhile, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has underlined the new initiative: "We hope to work together with the Government and the Tokyo Organising Committee to look into what can be rationalised and simplified."

Making long-range judgements about the likely success of Olympic Games is never simple, even if it is rational. One of the curious features of the Tokyo 2020 Games being postponed is that we have had the opportunity to see how things turned out regarding the many warnings over a potentially fatal heatwave.

As insidethegames reported: "Heat became a major concern for Tokyo 2020 after more than 50 deaths were recorded in Japan because of rising temperatures in July last year.

"A number of heat-prevention measures were introduced, including the use of real and fake snow, cooling mist sprays and shading tents.

"Fears also prompted organisers to controversially switch the marathons and race walking to Sapporo, more than 800 kilometres to the north of Tokyo."

Like quiz contestants obliged to observe what might have happened had they not halted their participation at a given point, we have now seen that Tokyo did not experience the dire levels of heat predicted, with temperatures going no higher than 31°C.

Right now, aside from the overarching consideration of whether the pandemic will still be a major factor next summer, and if so whether the Games could be held anyway, there is another indicator rising – that these Games do not carry popular approval in Japan.

Last month a survey conducted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo found that fewer than one in four Japanese people are in favour of holding the Games next year, and that a third wanted them to be cancelled.

Eight years after a previous Games scheduled for Tokyo had been cancelled for reasons of war, London was the city that came to the aid of the Olympic Movement and allowed the Games to resume in 1948.

In staging the first Olympics after the Second World War, Britain took on an awkward task which encountered considerable animosity at home from those who felt the project was a waste of money.

They took place in an austere post-war age in which rationing was still in force. A simplified Games, if you like. 

Despite all this, they were successful.

Extravagance for the London 1948 Games was allowing British competitors to have increased rations in the two weeks leading up to competition.

Today – August 9 – marks the 72nd anniversary of the rowing victory in the men's double sculls of Dickie Burnell and Bert Bushnell, one of only three golds won by the host nation at the Games.

On the 50th anniversary of the Games I attended a commemorative event at the old Wembley Stadium which had hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies as well as the athletics programme, and Bushnell was among the 1948 Olympians I was lucky enough to meet.

Then 76, he recalled a Games that was in keeping with the austere spirit of the times.

"You talk about magnificence," he said. "There really was not any.

"We came down here as a British team and marched down to the track when they lit the Olympic Flame, then we went back to Henley where the regatta was and that was that.

"After the racing had finished all the oarsmen had a dinner and threw bread rolls at each other and went home."

Bushnell retired immediately after the Olympics to concentrate on his job as a marine engineer.

"It was the case then that you had to go to work – and work and rowing didn't really mix."

He had by then donated his gold medal to the recently opened rowing museum at Henley.

"Anyone can look at that medal," he said. "It belongs to Great Britain."

Stan Cox, seventh in a 10,000 metres in which the incomparable Emil Zatopek lapped all but two runners en-route to gold, echoed Bushnell's recollections on the subject of work.

He could only take two days off from his job as a cable layer – one for the Opening Ceremony, and one for the race, which was a straight final.

Cox recalled the confusion the Czech runner's brilliance had caused.

"Zatopek was a marvel," Cox said. "He was that good, he was lapping people, and the whole thing got out of hand," he recalled.

"The officials, instead of keeping their eye on the job, were keeping their eye on the amazing Zatopek and lost control."

In common with several other runners, Cox ended up running an extra lap. 

"Harold Abrahams, who used to commentate for the BBC, worked out that I should have been fifth, not seventh."

One of the rare complexities in a simple and straightforward Olympic celebration…