Sport

Prospects for Tokyo Games remain very much in the balance

Uncertainty amidst soaring coronavirus rates and lockdowns across the world

Tokyo has been relatively successful in containing the virus. A city of 14 million people, it has reported less than 9,000 cases and 326 deaths since February. Photograph: Zasuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty

Matthew Futterman
Motoko Rich and Andrew Keh
Mon Jul 20 2020 - 18:16

A year from now, the world will begin to gather in Japan to celebrate the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, which were supposed to begin this week. Or maybe it won't.

Four months after the International Olympic Committee and officials in Japan postponed the games amid soaring coronavirus infection rates and lockdowns across the world, uncertainty prevails.

The unpredictable nature of the virus is making it impossible for officials to say definitively that the games will happen or, if they do, what they might look like. Maybe there won’t be spectators. Maybe only people living in Japan will be able to attend. Or maybe only those from countries where the virus is under control.

Will there be an Olympic Village, the traditional home for the roughly 10,000 competitors? Will athletes from the United States, where the pandemic shows no signs of abating, be allowed to attend?

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In a news conference last week, Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, said planning for the games now involves multiple options. All of them, he said, prioritise the health of the athletes.

“It includes all different countermeasures,” Bach said of the planning.

“An Olympic Games behind closed doors is clearly something we do not want. We are working for a solution that safeguards the health of all the participants and is also reflecting of the Olympic spirit.”

Bach has said a further postponement is not an option at the moment; if the games cannot be held next summer, they will not be held at all. As sports leagues everywhere struggle to return to some semblance of normality while balancing virus outbreaks and safety concerns, the challenges of planning a global event that is still a year away have only grown – or merely been exacerbated as hot spots for infections continue to shift.

No one doubts the resolve of the IOC and its local organisers in Japan, who desperately want to hold the games, given the resources they’ve already committed and the money at stake. Japan has already spent roughly $12 billion to prepare for the games.

The IOC stands to lose billions in revenue from media rights, tickets and sponsorships if the games do not happen. Despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases and a ban on travel from 129 countries, the official line in Japan remains that the postponed 2020 Games will open July 23rd, 2021, in Tokyo. Shortly after Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, won a second term this month, she met with Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to discuss measures to contain the virus.

“I would like to lead the Olympics and Paralympics next year as proof that we have overcome the coronavirus,” she said.

Last Wednesday Tokyo raised its pandemic alert level to red, its highest classification, in response to a recent spike in cases concentrated in the metropolis’s sprawling nightlife district. In the last two weeks, Tokyo has recorded several consecutive daily records, hitting a peak of 293 new infections on Friday.

Financial engine

Compared with other international cities, Tokyo has been relatively successful in containing the virus. A city of 14 million people, it has reported less than 9,000 cases and 326 deaths since February, compared with more than 3.5 million cases and nearly 140,000 deaths in the United States.

Traditionally the financial engine of an Olympics, the United States currently poses perhaps the biggest threat to the games. Part of Japan's strategy has been to close its borders to citizens travelling from 129 countries, including the United States and large portions of Europe, Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia.

Japan recently announced plans to negotiate some reciprocal travel between Japan and Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam, but it has not indicated when it plans to reopen its borders to travellers from the rest of the world.

Even inside Japan, citizens remain wary about travelling: A plan to encourage domestic travel was met with resistance as people worried that Tokyo residents could spread the virus to other parts of the country. On Friday, the country’s tourism minister discouraged Tokyo residents from visiting other prefectures and said that government travel discounts would not apply to travellers to or from Tokyo.

Polls suggest the public is also wary of the Olympics. In a survey late last month by the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest daily newspapers, 59 per cent of those polled said they wanted the Olympics to be postponed again or cancelled.

Koike, though, was recently re-elected governor of Tokyo in a landslide, even as she adhered to the official position of holding the games in 2021. During a recent conference call with athletes, though, leaders of the USOPC had few concrete answers. No one could say if athletes would still have to share rooms in the Olympic Village, if the common dining hall would be a potentially germ-spreading buffet, or if the American team – traditionally the biggest contingent at any games – might have to be housed separately from people representing other nations.

"Athletes are yearning for more concrete communication directly from the IOC and other organizations," said Han Xiao, chair of the USOPC's Athletes' Advisory Council. The US team of more than 500 athletes might have to be smaller, although so far the IOC has maintained that it does not plan to reduce the number of events or participants.

"There is a lot of speculation and proposals, but not one specific plan that anyone is able to focus on," said Christian Taylor, a two-time gold medallist in the triple jump. Rick Adams, the chief of sport performance at the USOPC, said the organisation remained focused on Plan A – a typical Olympic Games with most athletes living and eating in the Olympic Village and using a training centre the USOPC will set up in Tokyo's Setagaya City neighbourhood.

But the organisation also has considered how it would adjust if it has to come up with an alternative plan for housing and feeding its team and for shrinking its support staff.

“We understand what a pivot might look like,” Adams said. “We know how to adjust quickly and would be able to do that.” – New York Times

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