| For the most part, the return of sports following the shutdown necessitated by the coronavirus has been overwhelmingly triumphant. Yes, things have looked different and felt different, but somehow, against the odds, a full National Football League season took place. The NBA completed a campaign from the bubble of a theme park resort. Baseball found a way, despite overwhelming logistical hurdles, to crown a World Series champion. Tom Brady collected ring No. 7, LeBron James increased his tally to four, Clayton Kershaw exorcised his postseason demons and all kinds of sports, big and small, innovated and adapted and thought their way through the challenge of putting together meaningful competition at a time when every restriction was stacked against them. Now, heading towards the middle of 2021, it has almost begun to look easy. It isn’t. And the rescheduled Olympics in Tokyo, due to start in just 52 days’ time, is showing us why. Normally the Olympics don’t creep up quietly, not when they get this close. There is a wave of publicity, anticipation, promotion and optimism. It is hard not to be upbeat about any impending Games, because while not all athletes win, it almost always feels like the world of sports triumphs. Not this time. It is sad it has come to this, just over seven weeks away and still little in the way of meaningful information about whether Tokyo 2020* can actually take place, never mind what it would actually look like. We know that foreign fans will not be permitted, but there is scant information on whether Japanese locals will be populating the numerous stadiums erected and prepared at great public expense. We also know that same Japanese public, which celebrated wildly when their capital was granted hosting rights in 2013 and snapped up tickets with breathless fervency, now doesn’t really want it. Japan loves the Olympics like no other, but it doesn’t love these ones, not anymore. With less than 3% of the country fully vaccinated and costs continuing to rise drastically, the tide has turned. The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second biggest newspaper and an official Olympic sponsor, led a recent editorial by stating the Games should be scrapped, an opinion that has been echoed elsewhere. The International Olympic Committee initially moved the Games to 2021, and has said that if the competition can’t be held this summer, it would be canceled altogether. “We don’t think it makes sense to hold the Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo this summer,” the newspaper stated. “The distrust and opposition toward the ruling government, the Tokyo government, and Olympic officials are widespread as they haven’t tried to address people’s doubts and concerns.” It all boils down to a heartbreaking conundrum. The option of holding the multi-sport extravaganza comes fraught with potential pitfalls. All the things that make the Olympics wonderful are exactly what is working against them this time. So many sports, so many venues, so many athletes – from so many countries. Tokyo did a fine job in getting itself ready for a somewhat normal Games. No city could have primed itself for this. So, is the best option to just go ahead regardless and try to put on the best Olympics possible, complete in the knowledge that it’s just not going to be the same? Or is it clean-slate time, a chance to cut losses and look forward to the next Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024? The next Winter Olympics, it is worth noting, are also on the imminent horizon, due to start in Beijing in just eight months. If you have a right answer, a perfect solution, let me know. I’m pretty much out of ideas. If pressed, I’d probably tell you the Games should not take place, but the thought of all those broken dreams for athletes deprived of the chance of a lifetime sparks feelings of desperate sadness. If these Games go away, some of those competitors will be back. For others, this may have been their only go-around. U.S. Olympic chiefs are still instructing their athletes to get ready as if there will be an Olympics. Meanwhile, the State Department last week upped Japan to its highest tier of travel warning – Level 4. The wording at that level leaves nothing to the imagination – urging citizens to “avoid all travel” to Japan. Meanwhile, in Japan, there is additional gloom to go with the difficulty of an ongoing official state of emergency. Tokyo, one of the world’s most energized cities, is eerily quiet, whereas in normal times Olympic fever would have already firmly taken hold. Around the country, in small towns that built facilities and set themselves up as pre-Games bases for visiting athletes, there is the lingering feeling of something lost, albeit something they never had. In Kamo, a small Northwestern city that was due to host Russia’s gymnastics squad, the professional equipment purchased and installed at great expense cannot be returned. Last week, word came in that the Russians would not be coming. A group of local children decided to send messages to the gymnasts team anyway, young voices that sum up the heartbreak of what may turn out to be an impossible Olympics. “We wish we could have met you,” read one. “We wish things were different.” Here’s what others have said … Japan Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto: “All the people involved with the games are working together to prepare, and the athletes are also making considerable efforts toward next year under the circumstances they’ve been handed. I think we have to hold the Games at any cost.” D’Arcy Maine, ESPN: “Hosting the Olympics is a costly affair and Japan has already reportedly spent over $25 billion of mostly public finances. Believe it or not, even if fans aren’t allowed and athletes are heavily restricted in traveling outside of the grounds, this would still be an incredibly lucrative event. Global broadcast rights (NBC here in the U.S.) make up roughly 73% of income generated from the Games, believed to be $2 billion to $3 billion, and sponsorships make up almost another 20%. Plus, Japan would still get major publicity.” Haruo Ozaki, Chairman, Tokyo Medical Association: “Vaccinations under the current pace are not going to help prevent infections during the Olympics. The Olympics can trigger a global spread of different variants of the virus.” |
