The Economist - The World in 2021 - USA (2020-11-24)

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It is almost as confusing as the rules of cricket. Almost

The year of déjà vu


Everything is better the second time around, right?—asks Leo Mirani


HERE IS A question for future pub quizzes: in which year were the 2020


Olympics held in Tokyo? An easy one—the answer is 2021. What about Expo


2020 in Dubai? An answer of 2021 would score a point, but so would 2022; it


runs from October to March. How about Miss America 2020? That is a trick


question. The event took place in December 2019, before coronavirus turned


the world upside down. It is Miss America 2021 that has been cancelled.


Many other annual events will try to pick up where they left off in 2019. But organisers
of less regular events are hoping to go ahead with the ones postponed from 2020, and
hope the punters will put up with outdated merchandise. Some, such as Euro 2020, a
quadrennial football tournament, have retained the same name. UEFA, the European
football confederation, says this is “to keep the original vision of the tournament” and to
“serve as a reminder of how the whole football family came together”. But it admits that

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