Can the Tokyo Olympics still happen this summer?
YES We know how to manage the risks
Yes, the Summer Games can still happen. Let’s start with what is already in place.
It is no exaggeration to say that Japan assembled the country’s A Team to organize the 2020 Games and that those Games would have established a new paradigm in Olympic Games organization, just as the 1964 Games in Tokyo did for that era.
The 2020 organizers were drawn from the best available talent in all of Japan and had accomplished their work with consummate skill which, in addition to superbly presented sport competitions and ceremonies, creating new levels of accessibility for the public, domestic and visiting, enhancing the overall experience the Games
Athletes, organizers, spectators, sponsors and media, were disappointed by the necessary decision to postpone the Games by a year. Almost lost to public attention, however, was the huge challenge of stopping such an enormous undertaking only months before it was scheduled to occur, holding it in abeyance and effectively redelivering it a year later.
The 2020 Olympic venues have successfully been re-secured by the organizers, a monumental and complicated set of challenges, since post-2020 arrangements for almost all of them had already been made. I doubt that any other country would have had the resilience and organizational capability to do so. We can but hope that someday the Japanese playbook becomes publicly available as an example of superb comprehensive planning and execution in a complex rapidly changing environment.
We are now just about six months from the new dates. The same organizing team has done everything possible to enable well-planned Games, with the precision, innovations and service levels we expected for 2020.
I am fully confident that the organization of the Games will be extraordinary. The Japanese authorities have been immensely supportive and generous, confident of Japan’s ability to deliver and conscious of the importance of the Games to Japan, the world at large and, perhaps the most central stakeholders, the Olympic athletes, whose dreams for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity hang in the balance.
The Olympic movement, including the IOC, the international sports federations, national Olympic committees and the athletes themselves, has made all the necessary adjustments to the complicated international sports schedules to accommodate the new Olympic dates. The IOC has maintained its financial and moral support for Games preparation.
In short, we can be confident that every controllable factor required for successful Games this summer has been dealt with by the organizers and sport authorities.
It would be foolhardy, however, to ignore the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains the elephant in the room. Nobody connected with the Games is ignoring it. So long as the pandemic persists, some risk also exists. The challenge is to reduce that risk to a manageable level and we know how to do that.
Elaborate plans have been made to ensure that the Olympic Village will be the safest place in Tokyo, including social distancing, instant testing and tracing regimes for athletes and support personnel. Increasingly sophisticated vaccines (developed astonishingly quickly in response to the pandemic) are being certified and deployed in Japan and around the world.
Having recently declared a current state of emergency regarding the pandemic, the Japanese authorities might usefully consider identifying the additional protective measures they have taken to deal with that emergency — to bolster everyone’s confidence, both at home and abroad.
The IOC has urged all athletes and others attending the Games in Tokyo to consider vaccination and will institute a program to produce and distribute information to athletes, officials and media regarding prevention and risk- reducing procedures. International co-operation will assist the logistics of vaccine deployment.
We need to maintain our focus on the objective and not be obsessed by obstacles that can, and will, be overcome.
All of us share an interest in a successful outcome and celebration of Games in Tokyo this Summer. After what will by then have been a disturbing 18 months of existential threat, some good news generated by the youth of the world, gathered in peaceful international competition, will contribute significantly to everyone’s morale. The human spirit is resourceful, resilient, persevering and indomitable.
Sport can, indeed, contribute to the betterment of society. Let’s make sure we give it the chance to do so.
This summer!