It has always been clear where the main enduring strengths of the Tokyo bid lay.

Even when the mood in the sporting world, in the countdown to today's big vote, lurched dramatically away from extravagant mega-projects in favour of an austerity more in keeping with the world's economic problems, Japanese bid leaders were shielded by the presence in the race of a still more ambitious project - the one advocated with such passion by Tokyo's rival Istanbul.

For a long time, indeed, the Asian bid's biggest problem appeared to be the lack of any real sense of excitement inside the Movement about the prospect of the Games returning to the Japanese capital after 56 years - a sort of "X factor" akin to the "city that bridges continents" ticket that Istanbul looked to make so much of.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe embraces Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after Tokyo were awarded the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics

And then Fukushima hit.

Having lain in the background for two years since the devastating tsunami/earthquake of 2011 struck, at least insofar as the narrow confines of this particular bid battle was concerned, Tokyo 2020 suddenly looked set to be submerged under a torrent of adverse media comment stemming from concerns that the impact of the nuclear accident might be much more far-reaching than initially thought.

It was the sort of out-of-left-field development which has characterised this strange race and which requires impeccable judgement - and flexibility - from bid leaders tasked with responding to it.

For weeks, with the Tokyo team seemingly in denial, such flexibility looked to be beyond them and their chances of victory were perceived to have shrunk accordingly.

But, with time running out, it became apparent that Tokyo's strategists had fashioned an answer; this combined the formulation of markedly more direct responses to the endless questions with the delivery of a diversion of unanswerable effectiveness.

Japan's Princess Takamado speaks during the final presentation before the International Olympic Committee members during Tokyo's presentation

The moment when Princess Hisako of Takamado glided unobtrusively into the Hilton lobby was the moment that the dynamic of this bizarre, twisting, turning contest changed for the final time.

Her very arrival was a sensation, given the extraordinary protocol hoops bid leaders had to jump through.

That it was immediately clear she was already well-known, and liked, by a few of those gathered in Buenos Aires, through her presidency of no fewer than nine sports bodies, was a further bonus.

But it was the way she plunged with relish into the lobbying hothouse that is the Olympic hotel 48 hours before a big vote that was the clincher.

Tokyo 2020 chief executive Masato Mizuno, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose and ambassador Christel Takigawa celebrate as they are awarded the Olympics and Paralympics

At a stroke, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members comprising the electorate in this contest had something more immediate and alluring to preoccupy them than a nuclear accident.

Once the Princess had completed her bravura contribution to her country's future by opening the Tokyo 2020 presentation in a combination of flawless English and perfectly-accented French, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nailed what remained of the Fukushima issue to IOC members' evident satisfaction by asserting that it "has never done, and will never do, any damage in Tokyo".

As she prepares to return to the bosom of her imperial family, Princess Hisako can reflect that her impact on the decisive closing stages of this peculiar race was comparable to that of Sebastian Coe, on behalf of London 2012, in 2005, or the governor of the Brazilian Central Bank, on behalf of Rio 2016, in 2013.

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