There will be fun and Games
JAPAN IS PERFECT NATION TO HOST AN OLYMPICS THAT WILL LOOK LITTLE DIFFERENT FROM AFAR…
WE can all remember where we were when big moments, either personal or global, unfolded. Whether it is the delivery of good or bad news in our own lives or those indelible moments that grip us, like 9/11.
I recall as if it were yesterday where I was when I heard I’d been dropped from the British team for the Seoul Olympic Games, which would have been my third. That moment took place behind the wheel of my car in the outside lane of the A3.
The harbinger of bad news that day — yes, you’ve guessed it — was not the well- chosen and comforting words of a chairman or chief executive of the athletics federation but BBC radio news. It has sadly been a recurring theme in British sport, which is not always the touchstone of grace or elegance in these matters.
In politics, the best primary source of reshuffle intelligence is always the ministerial drivers, partly through gossip and partly through reassignment. One former minister told me his driver, having dropped him off at a conference where he was billed as the keynote speaker, politely but disarmingly explained he wouldn’t be needing him after the speech.
Many athletes will recall exactly where they were and what they were doing last March when they received the news that the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were being postponed for a year.
Those in the bloom of their careers, though disappointed, were sanguine and quickly regrouped. Others at the wrong end of their competitive years knew it was probably all over.
The former group absorbed the frustration quickly and refocused their physical and mental energy for a year hence in Tokyo, and reconstructed new training blocks with their coaches.
I remember being uplifted and saddened in equal measure by the fortitude that some athletes displayed to keep in shape for the moment competition resumed.
Videos of high hurdlers powering through drills on the balconies of apartment blocks, sitting rooms converted into makeshift gyms and bathrooms into acclimatisation chambers.
And when we were able to piece together a belated season towards the autumn months of last year, the athletes bounced back with alacrity and a cluster of world records which have continued into the indoor season.
Indeed, at the recent European Indoor Championships in Poland — the climax of the indoor season — the athletes were buoyed by the near certainty of being part of an Olympic summer of sport.
I have reason to believe their confidence is well- founded. Towards the end of last year, I went to Tokyo to meet all the partners responsible for delivering the spectacle.
From the government there was an unflinching determination to deliver a Games that were safe and secure, and deliver them they will. If any nation was to be thrown this curve ball of Olympic postponement my relief is that it was the Japanese.
I can only imagine how I would have felt had somebody poked their head around the door of my London Olympic office in March of 2012 and said: ‘ By the way, the opening ceremony has been moved a year down the track.’
The Japanese have shown resilience and taken this in their stride. There are many nations that would not have responded as well.
And there are two key constituents clamouring for the challenge and the spirit of an Olympic Games.
The athletes are desperate for competition — most of them have dedicated over half of their young lives for this moment and they are determined to seize it. Equally, the larger part of the global population wants to be lifted from their daily worries by sport.
The Olympics are not just any other sporting event, and more than anything else this year they can lead us into more optimistic times.
Yes, there was an unnecessary wobble a few months ago when an opposition member of the governing coalition of the Japanese government briefed a foreign correspondent that the
LORD COE IS WRITING EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Games were not only on the skids but plans were afoot to postpone them — which in reality could only have meant cancellation.
It didn’t really matter that the newly appointed Japanese prime minister went straight to parliament to pour cold water on the unhelpful speculation, the story was off and away.
Mercifully the athletes maintained their laser-like focus and continued their preparations unabated.
And there are of course a couple of essential differences between the political mischief a few months ago and where we all were roughly this time last year.
First, the rollout of the vaccines and, secondly, most athletes, although navigating border restrictions, still have access to training facilities and competition even if only domestically.
And while the International Olympic Committee puts the finishing touches to the so-called ‘ playbooks’ — which tightly prescribe what life at the Games will look like for all those responsible for its delivery — for most of the worldwide public watching the action, which for them is a TV experience in their own homes, the Games, I suspect, will look little different.
We’ve all become a little fixated on spectators. Their presence is important, but it is not a deal-breaker. My guess is that spectators are likely to be largely Japanese and social distancing will still be a rigid policy.
It is the athletes who will notice the biggest difference. Their day is unlikely to be much more than the village, training facility and competition venue. They will arrive only a handful of days before their event and leave shortly after they have finished.
There will be little or no opportunity for sightseeing or karaoke. For most serious medal contenders, it’ll be business as usual. Come to think of it, the same daily routine I experienced in the Games of 1980 in Moscow but for different reasons.
My instinct is that those who were on track to do well last year will be among the spoils in Tokyo this summer.