The countdown clock is clicking again for Tokyo
The countdown clocks have been reset and are ticking again for the Tokyo Olympics.
The model outside Tokyo Station, and others across the Japanese capital, were switched on almost immediately after organisers announced the new dates – July 23 to August 8, 2021.
The clocks read 479 days to go. That seems a long way away, but also small and insignificant compared with the worldwide fallout from the coronavirus.
Then again, it’s not much time to reassemble the first Olympics to be postponed since the modern games began 124 years ago; not for 11,000 Olympic athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes, and not for sponsors, broadcasters, the fans that have already bought tickets and Japanese organisers and taxpayers who have spent billions and will have to come up with billions more to pay for the setback.
“I believe that these Olympics are going to have great historical significance,” Yoshiro Mori, the president of the Tokyo organising committee, said after confirming the new dates.
Mori, an 82-year-old former Japanese prime minister, also recalled there’s no guarantee that the coronavirus pandemic will be under control a year from now. That includes the new dates for the Paralympics now set for August 24-September 5.
“This is a prayer that we have, and I do believe that someone is going to listen to our prayers,” Mori said.
After cursory talk about an Olympics in the spring, the new summer dates overlap perfectly with the same time slot that was picked for 2020. Organisers are hoping to overlay the old plans with new plans, keeping venues in place, securing thousands of rooms in the Athletes Village, deploying the same volunteers, and letting people who bought tickets keep them.
AVOIDING CONFLICTS
The summer date also avoids conflicts with the crowded North American and European sports schedules. But summer in Tokyo also means grappling with intense heat and humidity, the major worry for games organisers before the pandemic.
“Obviously, in the summer there might be typhoons and the heat problems,” Mori said. “However, this situation is the same. We always had those problems so we will be prepared for those issues.”
Though the international sports federations went along with the new dates, some of them, like the International Triathlon Union, preferred the cooler spring during Japan’s cherry blossom season. But that was overridden by the easiest route to lining up venues.
“We are having discussions with all the venues at the moment,” said Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the organising committee. “At this point we don’t have a final decision. However, some problems have already become apparent.”
Muto said organisers haven’t yet heard from any venues saying the rescheduled Olympic events can’t be staged there next year.
“There are a lot of venues that can’t make a decision yet. So we have to negotiate with them,” he said. “If we have to make a change to the venues, then we might have to change the competition schedule as well.
“I personally don’t think there are going to be many major changes to the (competition) schedule,” he added. “But our discussions haven’t gone that far yet.”