• IOC president criticised as ‘delusional’ on social media
• ‘Athletes gave these Games a great Olympic soul,’ says Bach

Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, has hailed athletes for giving “soul” to the Games and admitted he feared for the event after almost all spectators were barred.

However, his claims that the Tokyo Games had “far exceeded my personal expectations”, and had been a great success were widely criticised on Japanese social media with users calling him “an Olympic aristocrat who is trapped in a delusional shell”.

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