Sun.Star Baguio

The countdown clock is clicking again for the Tokyo Olympics

-

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 organizers announced the new dates — July 23 to Aug. 8, 2021.

The clocks read 479 days to go. This 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, 4,400 Paralympic athletes — and not for sponsors, broadcaste­rs, the fans that have already bought tickets, and Japanese organizers 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 organizing 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 Aug. 24-Sept. 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. Organizers 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.

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 organizers 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 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 organizing committee. “At this point we don’t have a final decision. However, some problems have already become apparent.”

Muto said organizers 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.”

David Wallechins­ky, the president of the Internatio­nal Society of Olympic Historians, said the Olympics in 2021 — they will still be officially called the 2020 Olympics — could become a symbol for a world pulling together after the pandemic.

“I see this postponeme­nt as more of an opportunit­y for the Olympic Movement, rather than a setback,” he said in an email to the Associated Press.

He said an outright cancellati­on, rather than postponeme­nt, probably was not feasible.

“From a financial point of view, cancellati­on was not a viable option,” he said. “The repercussi­ons would have been complex and widespread.”

Mori and Muto have both acknowledg­ed rejiggerin­g the Olympics will incur “massive costs.” Estimates range between an added $2-6 billion. And Japanese taxpayers will pick up most of the bills, as they have for most of the preparatio­ns so far.

Muto promised transparen­cy in calculatin­g the costs, and testing times deciding how they are divided up.

“There will be costs and we will need to consider them one by one,” Muto said. “I think that will be the tougher process.”

Japan is officially spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics. However, an audit bureau of the Japanese government says the costs are already twice that much. When it won the bid in 2013, Tokyo said the Olympics could cost $7.3 billion.

 ??  ??
 ?? AP Photo ?? CLOCK TICKS AGAIN. A man takes pictures of a countdown display for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympic­s Tuesday, March 31, 2020, in Tokyo. The countdown clock is ticking again for the Tokyo Olympics. They will be July 23 to Aug. 8, 2021. The clock read 479 days to go. This seems light years away, but also small and insignific­ant compared to the worldwide fallout from the coronaviru­s.
AP Photo CLOCK TICKS AGAIN. A man takes pictures of a countdown display for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympic­s Tuesday, March 31, 2020, in Tokyo. The countdown clock is ticking again for the Tokyo Olympics. They will be July 23 to Aug. 8, 2021. The clock read 479 days to go. This seems light years away, but also small and insignific­ant compared to the worldwide fallout from the coronaviru­s.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Philippines