Dunedin’s Lars Humer feels the Tokyo Games may not be quite as different as people are expecting, though.
The New Zealand swimming coach has been to the Games before, during his time in Britain and Ireland.
While the absence of fans would be notable, he said the day-to-day living conditions would not be as radically different as many have speculated.
‘‘I think the Olympics will be more normal or regular than perhaps people are portraying it,’’ he said before he and star pupil Erika Fairweather left.
‘‘I think the Olympic Games is quite a unique environment and has quite a lot of protocols around hygiene and safety.
‘‘It actually lends itself quite well to a Covid-type environment.’’
Giving themselves extra time would be the biggest difference.
That could come from increased security making queues slightly longer, or things such as limits on people in elevators meaning a longer wait to get in one.
He said living conditions would be much the same.
All the teams in the Olympic village would stay in apartment buildings and would naturally stay in bubble-type groups as each sport focused on itself.
Tables at the dining room would be reduced from six seats to four, with clear screens between each person.
Gloves would be used, rather than just tongs, to take food from the buffet.
Servers behind food counters would wear masks and gloves, but they typically wore them anyway.
Contact tracing would be done through signing in with accreditation barcodes, which again was something that was always done.
