A strange Olympics under Covid
The most famous sporting event in the world officially gets under way in Japan this week, with a massive security apparatus in place to keep participants apart from ordinary people. Security fencing round the Olympics main stadium and a wall of coronavirus protocols have been thrown up to try to ensure athletes, officials, support staff and media from overseas do not introduce more coronavirus into the host country.
Even so, health experts say the Games protocols for testing or ventilation aren’t strong enough.
Covid-19 has already reared its ugly spikes. A number of cases among Games personnel have emerged, including several involving athletes.
Tokyo is under a state of emergency due to rising Covid cases. Many of the visitors will get only a glimpse of the city as they travel from the Olympics Village or from hotels to venues. Fans are banned from all Olympic events.
Over the past year and a-half we’ve got used to watching major sporting events with masked crowds, or few people and cardboard cutouts, or no-one watching live, but with piped crowd noise as though there’s an invisible horde in the stands.
The British and Irish Lions’ tour of South Africa has been going on in cavernous stadiums of empty seats, with chaotic real life off-screen. Members of the Springboks squad caught Covid and days of unrelated political unrest raised questions of whether the tour should continue. The tests will all be played in Cape Town.
Sometimes the realities of what it takes to put on sports events in these strange days cut through for the public, such as when Tonga’s captain Sonatane Takulua said following his side’s 102-0 loss to the All Blacks that: “A lot of people don’t know what we’re going through behind the scenes”.
Tonga had to scramble together a squad including 13 debutants. Several top players were held back by European clubs and others were in quarantine. Fiji has been playing, all while dealing with the emotional toll of a deadly outbreak at home. The Warriors have had to relocate to the Gold Coast because of the Sydney lockdown.
Regardless of the difficulties viewers don’t see, the sporting contests have been intense experiences for athletes and that’s likely to be the case at the Olympics as well. The measures required to hold the Games are stringent. There is daily Covid-19 testing during the Olympics and athletes needed two negative tests before arriving and were tested again after touching down. Each athlete will have a Covid-19 minder to ensure rules are complied with.
Apps must be downloaded for online health checks and contacts. The athletes can’t walk around the city or go to bars. They’ve been advised to clap in support of athletes instead of yelling. Athletes will hang medals around their own necks and there will be no podium handshakes or hugs.
These Olympics will be like no other. How they will be remembered remains to be seen.