I have tried consciously not to revisit every couple of weeks the subject of how likely the Games are to take place, and in what form, of capital significance though it is for the Olympic Movement.

This is not least because imponderables such as the arrival of effective vaccines and, now, the increased infectiousness of the disease are apt to change one’s assessment of this Big Question both radically and overnight.

Nevertheless, the first column of a new year seems an appropriate place at which to have another stab at it before we are again overwhelmed by a surfeit of light, tunnel and tool-box metaphors.

If one recent development - the success of the vaccine trials - made this mythical light shine brighter, the recent surge in infections, and infectiousness, in a number of countries has thrown the emphasis back on the length - and darkness - of the tunnel.

In terms of whether international sports events, including the Olympics, do or do not proceed in some form, I still think the calculation is essentially financial.

If an event’s "normal" profit margins are high enough to absorb the extra costs and still leave a surplus, and if said event’s revenues are derived largely from the sale of broadcasting rights, then, as our coping mechanisms, including vaccination, become more adept, there is a growing chance of it going ahead.

The added costs are anything but trivial, though.

I was struck, while preparing this piece, by a Tweet from Tennis Australia chief executive and Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley.

"There are a lot of pieces to this logistical puzzle and the last few are being finalised right now," Tiley wrote.

"We will have as many as 18 planes and each will be limited to 20 per cent capacity to ensure the flights are as safe as possible for everyone."

What, though, about the "in what form" part of my original question?

As far as the Olympics are concerned, Japanese public opinion, and the way it evolves over the next two or three months, now strikes me as critically important.

Concerns about the virus in the archipelago do seem to be mounting; this is hardly surprising, with infection rates on the rise.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected this week to make a decision on whether a new state of emergency in the Japanese capital is needed.

Tokyo Governor, Yuriko Koike, and counterparts from three neighbouring prefectures have already asked for one.

Much would then depend on the speed at which infection rates damped down and a widespread vaccination programme could be rolled out.

It is not just the nature of the 2021 Olympic Games that will be in play as these decisions are taken; Suga’s political fate will also almost certainly hinge on their effectiveness.

If I have understood correctly, a general election must be called by October at the latest, while Suga’s term as leader of his party expires in September.

To make his calculations all the more delicate, the Prime Minister’s opinion poll ratings have been on the slide.

One suspects that if the Olympics are a triumph, Suga would be able to cake-walk to another term in office.

But if the locals form the view that throwing open the doors to 11,000 athletes from every country on earth, and assorted hangers-on, has endangered them and put at risk Japan’s progress in the fight against this terrifying virus, he could be consigned rapidly to political history.

Current circumstances, meanwhile, appear to have more or less knocked on the head any realistic prospect of what might originally have been his strategists’ preferred course: an early election, leaving him to bask in reflected Olympic glory with a new term safely in the bag.

If the Olympics were a few months earlier than their rescheduled July 23 start-date, my impression is that, while you might just about get away with letting the stars do their thing inside a strict bubble, interaction with the local population would be kept to an absolute minimum and no-one who was not an indispensable piece of the Olympic jigsaw would be allowed in without multiple testing and, possibly, a spell in quarantine.

As more of us acquire immunity and death rates begin to taper, the views of the host-public may become a touch more indulgent, with matters of national pride coming more into play.

But so many questions relating to immunisation have arisen since those euphoric days when it was proved that, in this case, the drugs do work, that it seems fanciful to expect them all to go away in the space of six months, preferably less.

One question I would hope we do know the answer to by then is, if effectively inoculated, could we still in theory infect others?

Provided the answer turns out to be No, that question need not detain us here.

More worrisome, given the tight timeline our Olympic masters have lumbered themselves with, is the rate of vaccine roll-out, which looks set to vary enormously, especially between rich and poor countries.

I would expect most athletes and other prospective Olympic attendees to want to be vaccinated before they travel to Tokyo.

But, in many countries, this may raise uncomfortable questions about who gets access to scarce vaccine supplies first.

While you might get a certain amount of popular backing for the notion of placing actual or potential national heroes early in the queue, suited officials, TV technicians or, you know, journalists are likely to prove a much harder sell.

Private sports bodies could probably flash the cash and steamroller their way through such scruples.

But a large part of the Olympic Movement’s USP resides in the explicitly didactic dimension of Olympism.

The minute it acknowledges that money is the be-all-and-end-all, it becomes just another sports business.

So Lausanne will have to tread carefully if issues arise regarding Olympic family-members accessing scarce vaccine supplies before, say front-line healthcare workers or others at demonstrably greater risk.

There is also the logistics of effective vaccination.

As I understand it, for optimal effect, you need to get two jabs of a particular vaccine, separated by a specific time interval.

With so many foreign visitors potentially heading their way, the Japanese could be forgiven for being sticklers about the various manufacturers’ instructions being abided by to the letter.

Yet in the dash to give as many vulnerable people as possible some sort of protection as quickly as possible, this seems to have become an issue even in a relatively developed country such as the UK.

There are other smaller things: can we be sure that the various vaccines athletes are likely to have taken will have no bearing on the chemistry of anti-doping? Will this be the first Olympic Opening Ceremony where people, or at least groups, are constrained to stay two metres apart from one another? And so on.

For all that, the odds still seem to favour some sort of televisual spectacular taking place in Japan this summer.

But a "normal" Olympics, with people from all over the world able to mingle and make friends in a constructive and festive atmosphere such as you do not quite find anywhere else but a Summer Games?

Sadly, I would be astonished.

The most important race of 2021 is nothing as trivial as an Olympic 100 metres.

It is the race to get populations vaccinated - in every country - starting with the most vulnerable, before further problematic mutations of the virus can develop and spread.