Four puzzles (and a metapuzzle)

The first subpuzzle:

"Swimming laps" in an "Olympic-sized venue" makes it clear that we're looking for Olympic swimming pools.

If you look at each of the given years, the Olympic swimming pool's name matches the enumeration:

1960: STADIO [OLIMPICO] DEL NUOTO
1920: STADE [NAUTIQUE] D'ANTWERP
1992: [PISCINES] BERNAT PICORNELL
1964: YOYOGI [NATIONAL] GYMNASIUM
1984: UYTENGSU [AQUATICS] CENTER
1952: [HELSINKI] SWIMMING STADIUM

The instructions also tell us to "swim one lap counterclockwise, visiting every space". These are the rules of the logic puzzle Simple Loop.

The Simple Loop puzzle can be solved with an entrance-counting argument:

The red dotted line must be crossed an even number of times for the loop to close, and therefore the edge marked with a red X cannot be used. (The rest of the solution follows easily.)

Filling the bracketed words into the grid, and using the instructions to read off cells, lets us extract...


...giving the solution of PANCAKE.

The second subpuzzle:

Each of the clues has an answer matching the given enumeration: BATA, HADES, INDRA, HOU YI, and QUETZALCŌĀTL. But these, of course, don't fit in the blanks on the right.


However, each of these religious figures is associated with a dog. Bata's brother was ANUBIS, Hades had CERBERUS, Indra had SARAMA, Hou Yi had the TIĀNGǑU, and Quetzalcōātl had XOLOTL. These do fit in the blanks! The numbers then give us the answer, NUT ROLL.

The third subpuzzle:

The presentation of this subpuzzle strongly suggests the app "Flow Free", a mobile game with puzzles where the goal is to connect each pair of same-colored circles. (This is an implementation of the logic puzzle genre Numberlink, though neither the puzzles in the app nor the one here are solvable purely logically.)

However, the text at the top is not from the app, nor are the paws or the "start / end" markers at the bottom. Looking up the phrases on top in the search engine of your choice, you will quickly find that these are all subspecies of wolf:
- The Alexander Archipelago wolf is "Canis lupus ligoni". - The Iberian wolf is "Canis lupus signatus". - The Mexican wolf is "Canis lupus baileyi". - The steppe wolf is "Canis lupus campestris". - The tundra wolf is "Canis lupus albus".

We can fill these into the paths, one letter per cell. (The lengths let us disambiguate the solution as well.)



In the image, the cells on the main diagonal are slightly lighter. These spell out our answer, GATEAU.

The fourth subpuzzle:

The first set of instructions is simple to follow: you end up with a red circle on a white sheet of paper. This is the flag of Japan.

The second set gives you this image:

This is the flag of Tokyo.

For the rest, we need to zoom in again. Each of these instructions produces the flag of one of the wards of Tokyo (analogous to the boroughs of New York City, except they have been given full 'city' status). For instance, the first is the flag of Suginami:


In order, the full list is: Suginami, Meguro, Setagaya, Shinagawa, Sumida, Koto, Toshima. Indexing into these by the corresponding numbers gives the answer: GRANITA.

Now what?

We have four answers: PANCAKE, NUT ROLL, GATEAU, and GRANITA. But it's not clear what to do with them - there's no flavortext or other indication, the title is unhelpful, and the puzzles didn't seem to have any sort of thematic commonality... right?

Well, the first puzzle was about drawing a loop, and Olympic swimming pools. It was a pool loop puzzle.
The second was about canine deities. It was a dog god puzzle.
The third was a Flow Free puzzle with Canis Lupus subspecies. It was a wolf flow puzzle. The fourth was a set of instructions for making flags of the wards of Tokyo. It was a ward draw puzzle.

...So what does that make this?

Well, clearly it involves desserts... so it must also involve something stressed.

And that's how we get something out of our four answers - look at the stressed syllables. PANcake, NUT roll, gaTEAU, and graNIta. Together, these make PANETTONE, another dessert and the final answer to the puzzle!

(Though I'll admit... I'm surprised that "petit four" isn't involved, as it would be a great description of this quartet of minipuzzles.)