There are no cheering foreign fans roaming the streets, and athletes are ferried from Village to venue in a bubble meant to keep them and the Japanese public safe from coronavirus.

Local spectators are barred from almost all Games venues, with only around 900 people expected to attend the opening ceremony at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium on Friday -- just around 150 of them Japanese.

Little surprise then that many in Japan are struggling to detect much Olympic spirit in the final countdown to a Games that are finally taking place a year after becoming the first in modern history to be postponed.

"It's completely different from the last Games [in 1964] when the whole city was filled with festive mood," said 80-year-old Michiko Fukui, as she strolled around the upscale Ginza district on Thursday.

The city has been adorned with Tokyo 2020 flags and advertising, and futuristic Olympic and Paralympic mascots are plastered on buses and buildings.

But there is little else to give away the fact that some of the world's top athletes have descended on Tokyo from around the globe.

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