Six months to go: Searching for answers in an Olympic vacuum

A man and a woman walk past the Nippon Budokan arena, one of the venues planned to be used in the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, in Tokyo on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. The postponed Tokyo Olympics are to open in just six months. Local organizers and the International Olympic Committee say they will go ahead on July 23. But it's still unclear how this will happen with virus cases surging in Tokyo and elsewhere around the globe. Picture: AP Photo/Hiro Komae

Today marks the 'six-months-to-go' mark for the delayed Tokyo Olympics but doubts remain over the viability of even a scaled-back Games taking place as Japan and the rest of the world grapple with Covid-19's third wave and the chaos that continues in its wake.

It's a sporting and societal limbo that continues to ask unique and endless questions of Ireland's prospective participants, not to mention their coaches and national federations. The Irish Examiner mulled over some of the issues with six of them.