Tokyo Olympics: No partying, just win and go home

TOKYO: Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics won’t have the luxury of hanging around once they’ve wrapped up their event. No latenight parties in the Athletes Village. No nights—or early mornings—on the town.

Instead of getting to know their global neighbours, Olympic athletes will be encouraged to leave Japan a day or two after they’ve finished competing.

From the opening ceremony to life in the village on Tokyo Bay, the postponed 2020 Olympics will be like no other. There’ll be stringent rules—and maybe vaccines and rapid testing—to pull off the games in the middle of the pandemic. “Staying longer in the village increases the potential for problems,” John Coates, IOC member in charge of overseeing Tokyo preparations, said at a briefing for the Olympics and Paralympics.

Coates was asked if athletes would be discouraged from sightseeing, or looking around the city. “Yes,” he replied simply, a short answer suggesting these Olympics will be all business with few frills. Coates accompanied International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach to Tokyo this week as he met Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and shored up support with key Japanese sponsors.

It was Bach’s first visit to Japan since the Olympics were postponed in March. Bach left Tokyo on Wednesday after two days of saying a vaccine was likely to be available and athletes would be strongly encouraged to take it. Organisers and IOC are growing confident they will have a vaccine and rapid testing. This will help, but dozens of other countermeasures will also be in place; social distancing, masks and bubbles in the venues and the Athletes Village. Japan has controlled the virus reasonably well with about 1,900 deaths attributed to Covid-19. But almost 500 new cases were reported Wednesday in Tokyo, and over 2,000 all over Japan.