Bharathi Dhanasekeran

The opening and closing ceremonies of the 2021 Olympics will take place in a stadium without the eyes, ears, and voices of the once-anticipated 68,000 ticket holders from around the world due to a huge increase of COVID-19 instances. Similarly, events in the days ahead will take place in empty arenas, devoid of the hundreds of thousands of people who spent US$815 million for now-worthless tickets. I can't help but wonder what the Greeks, who founded the Games nearly 3,000 years ago in 776 B.C., would think of such a ghostly version of their Olympic event after 48 years of teaching classics. They'd find the prospect ludicrous in many respects.