An out-of-the-ordinary Olympics

This year’s Summer Olympics haven’t even started, and they’re already historic.

For the first time since the modern Olympics began in 1896, the Games are taking place in an odd-numbered year. They’ve taken place every four years, except in 1916, 1940, and 1944 due to the First and Second World Wars. This is the first time a global pandemic has delayed the Games.

The timing isn’t all that will be different about these Olympics, which will begin July 23 in Tokyo. Here’s a look at other changes:

Venues will be mostly empty. As most of the United States has reopened, sports fans have celebrated by flocking to local ballparks and stadiums, rejoicing in their freedom to watch games in person again.

That won’t be the case in Japan: Last week, a spike in cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus in Tokyo led Olympic organizers to ban spectators at all Olympic venues in the city. Tokyo is under a state of emergency as the more contagious variant causes concern among the Japanese population, which is only 17 percent vaccinated. Some of the venues outside of Tokyo will allow fans up to 50 percent of capacity.

The few spectators there will be locals: In March, organizers decided not to allow international spectators. Not even athletes’ families can attend.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently made an exception for nursing mothers, who may bring their babies along. This was a last-minute development in late June after Canadian basketball player Kim Gaucher said she’d have to skip the Olympics if she couldn’t bring her 3-month-old daughter, whom she is breastfeeding. In response, the IOC told Reuters that “when necessary, nursing children will be able to accompany athletes to Japan.”

Athletes will be tested for the coronavirus. According to NBC—the network televising the Olympics in the United States—the IOC has asked athletes to monitor themselves for COVID-19 symptoms and log their temperatures daily on a smartphone app for two weeks before traveling to Japan. They must be tested for COVID-19 within 72 hours of traveling, then daily during the Games. Athletes who test positive are barred from competing, and those in close contact with them must be cleared to compete.

Athletes will also have limited freedom away from competition: They cannot leave the Olympic Village to go sightseeing, but are restricted to venues where they’re competing and other preapproved locations. The IOC wants athletes to arrive no more than five days before their first event, wear masks at all times outside of competition, and leave no more than two days after their last event. The IOC is scaling back the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies accordingly.

Pfizer and BioNTech will donate COVID-19 vaccines to athletes and country delegations, yet vaccination is not required.

Baseball and softball are back—for now. After disappearing from the Olympics following the 2008 Beijing Olympics, baseball and softball will return this year. The sports are not only quintessentially American, but also quintessentially Japanese: In Japan, the television viewership of the national high-school baseball tournament rivals the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in the United States. As for softball, Japan is the reigning Olympic champion, having upset Team USA to claim gold in 2008.

The U.S. baseball team features four former major league All-Stars (Todd Frazier, Scott Kazmir, Edwin Jackson, and David Robertson). The U.S. softball team, meanwhile, features prolific pitchers Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman as well as Rachel Garcia, a two-time NCAA player of the year at UCLA.

The return of baseball and softball is temporary—neither will be part of the 2024 Games in Paris. This year’s Summer Games will also feature the new sports of surfing, karate, sport climbing, and skateboarding.

The Games will likely be politically charged. This may or not be different from Olympics past: The 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, for instance, took place after the host country enacted the “gay propaganda” law several months earlier. The law prohibited the promotion of “non-traditional sexual relationships,” particularly to minors. Athletes, fans, and others faced the possibility of arrest if they protested the law until the IOC received assurances from Russian officials that the country would not enforce the ban against those attending or participating in the Games.

A long-standing Olympics rule bans “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda” at the Games, but earlier this month the IOC said it would allow athletes to protest before and after events and while talking to media, but not during awards ceremonies.

Gwen Berry, the hammer thrower for the women’s track and field squad, refused to face the American flag during the national anthem at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June. She has declared that the reason she’s competing is to call attention to social justice issues: “My purpose and my mission is bigger than sports,” she said.