The Tokyo Olympics showed large sporting events could safely be held in a pandemic and challenged policy makers to show why such events should not be held - rather than asking why they should, veteran Games administrator Sandy Holloway said.

The two-week tournament that wound up on Sunday after safely allowing competitors from over 200 countries to compete - and gave Australia its third-most successful Games ever without a single case of COVID among its 486 competitors - set a standard for assessing other events, the former head of the Sydney 2000 organising committee said.