Is the sun begin ning to set on Tokyo Olympics?
Covid surges around the world have cast fresh doubt over next summer’s Games
FUKUROI should have been a regular mention in the sports pages by now. Had the coronavirus pandemic not undone the 2020 Olympics, this small Japanese city would be preparing to host dozens of Irish athletes ahead of their participation in the biggest sporting show on earth.
Fukuroi was the location chosen for Team Ireland’s pre-Games camp, a place where those athletes who were of a mind to, could come and acclimatise, tapering their final preparations before the Olympics opening ceremony on July 24, two weeks today. That was back in the old time. The hope is that Fukuroi will still serve Irish hopefuls next year, ahead of the delayed Olympics that organisers insist will serve as a celebration of the human spirit.
The 2020 Olympics taking place in 2021 would, goes the belief, signify humankind’s capacity to absorb difficulties and then rebound. Not only would it be an example of athletic excellence, but it would be a global party for a world that has had to put up with common suffering. With little more than a year to the re-fixed startdate of July 23, however, doubts are growing about the viability of hosting the Olympics in Tokyo next summer.
When the Games were postponed at the end of March, most of the countries in the world had yet to go through the worst of the sufferings wrought by Covid-19.
Its effects were becoming known and the bewildering speed of its transmission had terrified public health experts, but in the three months since then, the virus has continued to cut a voracious path leaving millions sick and thousands dead.
The centre of the crisis has shifted from Europe to the Americas, but just as relevant from the perspective of those planning for the biggest sporting event on earth, have been the surges.
Recent weeks have brought accounts of lockdowns re-introduced in parts of England, Germany, Spain, Australia and the US. These countries are cited because they are five major Olympic powers; there are other examples.
However, powerful first-world countries struggling with new waves of infection not only show how vulnerable states are, but also illustrates a difficulty for Olympic organisers.
If the strongest and richest nations struggle to contain Covid19, then it is reasonable to suppose that poorer, less-developed ones will face grave difficulties, too.
And that poses obvious and pervasive problems for organisers.
Japan has coped comparatively well with the dangers of Covid-19; despite having the oldest population in the world, based on the percentage of its people aged 65 or over, the country has recorded fewer than 1,000 deaths.
Its relative success in containing the virus has not engendered complacency in the population when it comes to the prospect of hosting the Olympics, however.
A poll conducted last weekend found that just 17 per cent of respondents believed it was a possibility that the Games would go ahead next year; 77 per cent thought it was not.
Another poll last week found a majority wanted the Games postponed or cancelled.
The pessimism extends beyond the general public, too. In a survey of corporate sponsors of the Olympics, two-thirds said they were unsure if they would extend existing contracts beyond December.
The success of the Japanese people in combatting the coronavirus is attributed to many factors, including an early response, the widespread use of masks and an established test and trace system.
But it is clear that few unnecessary risks are being taken, either. Last week, authorities there added 17 more countries to a list of nations and territories whose citizens are banned from travelling to Japan, taking the total to 129.
This includes practically all of
Europe and north America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Travel restrictions of varying severity have been implemented by other countries, but the rigorous system operated by Japanese authorities makes relaxation to a point where thousands of athletes and attendant staff and media from all over the world converge on the country within 12 months seem a distant prospect.
The common response is that much can change within a year, but it is the uncertainty caused by this pandemic that makes planning so fraught.
And an Olympic Games demands
“Countries are
struggling with second waves”
a jaw-dropping amount of planning. Senior International Olympic Committee figures have already doubted whether the Games can be held again before an effective vaccine is discovered — and that could take years.
This has contributed to the idea of a pared-back Olympics, floated by a number of officials in recent months.
What form this would take has yet to be made clear, but it seems obvious that it would mean drastically reduced crowds, and the possibility of bans on attendees from countries struggling with high infection rates or surges.
Whether foreign spectators could attend at all is a decision impossible to take at this remove. And that sums up the mind-bending difficulty faced by organisers: circumstances can change quickly, going from settled to grave within the space of a few weeks.
Yet hosting even a slimmed-down Olympics requires months and months of preparations.
‘As we prepare for the Games, we are aiming for a simplified Games befitting a new era after going through these challenging times,’ the president of the Olympic organising committee, Yoshiro Mori, said this week.
This was an echo of a comment from Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo who was re-elected to the position last weekend. ‘Holding the Olympic and Paralympic Games calls for sympathy and understanding of Tokyoites and the Japanese people,’ she said.
‘For that, we need to rationalise what needs to be rationalised and simplify what needs to be simplified.’
There is little enlightenment in a comment like that, but finances are also playing a part in this plan for a more modest Games.
Hosting a conventional Olympics comes with a price running to several billion euro — the price for Tokyo before postponement had been estimated at €11.5billion, but this was regarded as conservative.
The added cost of rescheduling is now said to be anywhere between
€2billion and €5billion. With numbers like those confronting organisers, the desire to trim some fat is easily understood.
But whether there is any fat to trim remains utterly unknown.
The leadership of the IOC have said there will be no second reschedule: if the Games don’t happen in 2021, then the Tokyo Olympics will be cancelled.
That sounded an extreme possibility in the spring, but as the world continues to struggle with Covid-19, it grows more realistic.
The Ireland rugby team stayed in Fukuroi before their ill-fated World Cup match against Japan last October. The facilities were said to be excellent and the hosts delighted to have them.
That was supposed to be the warm-up for an Olympic camp that should have been up and running this week.
Instead, Irish memories of this part of Japan may yet be confined to a rotten rugby misadventure.
“The IOC has said it will not reschedule”