Top-level sport in Britain will carry added responsibility in the coming days and weeks as the nation searches for relief from fear and reasons to hope in the wake of the horrific Manchester Arena attack last Monday night.
This weekend alone sees the FA Cup final and Premiership rugby final in London, a stadium-filling world boxing title fight in Sheffield, the Scottish Cup final in Glasgow, one of Europe's premier golfing events in Surrey and one-day international cricket in Southampton, to name but a few.
Perhaps most remarkable, and defiant, of all will be the Great CityGames in Manchester on Friday, a free-to-attend athletics event with a purpose-built street track in the middle of a city still coming to terms with its grief.
Still to come this summer are the Champions League final in Cardiff, cricket's ICC Champions Trophy, Wimbledon tennis, The Open golf championship, the British Grand Prix and a host of other events that annually bring the British sporting summer to life.
While nobody can offer any guarantees on the prevention of terrorism, there are people all over the country -- from governing bodies and police to local authorities -- going to great lengths to minimise the risk.
At least one governing body executive has admitted to feeling pride at the way staff have reacted to the increased terror threat, the British government having raised it to the highest level: critical. Privately, too, there has been a measure of defiance, a determination not to see sport cowed by those who seek to wreak havoc.
"Security [organiser] was one of the first hires we made," said Steve Elworthy, tournament director for the ICC Champions Trophy which begins on June 1. "They are an incredibly important part of any tournament: the security plan, the security directorate, the formation of it, the engagement of all the stakeholders; the venues who deliver these tournaments for us are also incredibly important.
"We are as well prepared as we can be. Safety and security is at the centre of all our planning and there is a huge amount of engagement that goes on from the local organising committee with the England and Wales Cricket Board, the local boroughs, councils, police forces in terms of delivering safe and secure tournaments. That is all part and parcel of putting a security plan together."
Elworthy and the ICC have been planning for more than 14 months for the multi-venue Champions Trophy and the Women's World Cup, which also takes place across the UK this summer.
They are not unusual in their thoroughness: the National Police Chiefs' Council had told ESPN before Monday's Manchester attack that there "was no specific intelligence relating to threats to UK sports stadia", but Champions League final organisers had put in high-level measures to try to prevent a terror attack when Juventus and Real Madrid meet on June 3 at Cardiff's Principality Stadium anyway.
There will be around 6,000 police on the streets of the Welsh capital in the build up to the game, barriers are already in place to create a secure zone which will block vehicles from around the stadium and all these arrangements are being "constantly reviewed".
The All England Club also does more than is expected of it for Wimbledon, which takes place in July. Armed police officers patrolled the public areas of the grounds for the first time last year and a repeat was planned for this year long before this week's awful events.
"We pay for a few things to be done in addition to what would be done out of the public purse but we never talk about what they are because of the nature of the beast," the club's chief executive Richard Lewis told ESPN earlier this month. "We follow the advice and guidance [from police and security forces] and we do more ourselves.
"It's more every year. How can we get better? We look at other events, atrocities that happen and the services give us the background information on what happened. I expect it's a significant financial issue for a lot of events and we are very fortunate that it is never a financial issue here.
"It was the first time last year [that automatic weapons] were visible and that's a mixture of reassurance for the public -- they've got used to seeing armed policemen in public areas, and we've started to get a little bit of feedback from the public asking why they weren't seen here -- and partly because that's what the services say is necessary.
"It's fair to say that in previous years some of the things may have been behind the scenes that were overt in 2016."
While the big shows must go on, there has been an impact on sports-related events since Monday's attack. Chelsea have cancelled their Premier League trophy parade on Monday May 29, Cristiano Ronaldo called off a trip to London for a publicity event on Saturday, while Celtic also cancelled a parade to mark the 50th anniversary of their European Cup success.
There will be no disguising safety and security measures at showpieces in the aftermath of the Manchester attack, but if sport does its job and the organisers' efforts pay off, hopefully, the supporters will hardly notice.