Will the postponed Tokyo Olympics open despite rising opposition and the pandemic?
The answer is almost certainly yes.
by @stephenwadeap
https://t.co/XbT9QIQDJG— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) June 2, 2021
If the guys in charge can keep every compartment hermetically sealed, it’ll be a cruise to remember — at least for the first class passengers. If it hits a pandemic iceberg, well… just imagine the storytelling potential!
… Tokyo is under a COVID-19 state of emergency, but IOC Vice President John Coates has said the games will open on July 23 — state of emergency, or no state of emergency.
As an exclamation point, Australia’s softball team — the first major group of athletes from abroad to set up an Olympic base in Japan — arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday.
So the Olympics are barreling ahead. But why?
Start with billions of dollars at stake, a contract that overwhelmingly favors the IOC, and a decision by the Japanese government to stay the course, which might help Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga keep his job.
These factors have overridden scathing criticism from medical bodies that fear the Olympics may spread COVID-19 variants, and a call for cancellation from Asahi Shimbun, a games’ sponsor and the country’s second-largest selling newspaper. The United States Department of State has issued a Level-4 “Do not travel” warning for Japan with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency that expires on June 20…
A not-for-profit based in Switzerland, the IOC has ironclad control under terms of the so-called Host City Contract, and it’s unlikely to cancel on its own since it would lose billions in broadcast rights and sponsorship income.
Though it portrays itself as a sporting league of nations, the IOC is a multi-billion dollar sports business that derives almost 75% of its income from selling broadcast rights. Another 18% comes from 15 top sponsors…
The IOC always references the World Health Organization as the shield for its coronavirus guidance. The IOC has published two editions of so-called Playbooks — the final edition is out this month — spelling out protocols for athletes and everyone else during the Olympics.
Recent test events held under the protocols have faced few problems, but athletes will have to accept strict rules.
“I felt beyond safe,” American sprinter Justin Gatlin said at a test event last month in Tokyo. “I know a lot of athletes are not going to be happy with this but the measures are in place to keep everyone safe.”
Thousands of Tokyo Olympics volunteers quit – NHK https://t.co/egXsO7ijbN pic.twitter.com/hSEcwSChRz
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 2, 2021
Report from steerage. (I’d add ‘… so far’, but I’m not a professional reporter.)
Around 10,000 of the 80,000 volunteers who signed up to help at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games have quit, broadcaster NHK reported on Wednesday, citing organisers…
Multiple opinion polls have shown that a majority of respondents are opposed to holding the Games this summer during the pandemic.
Poe Larity
Parental Units are watching Mollie B’s Polka Party show. Something called Rural Media Network. They’re not dancing with MAGA hats, so it could be 20 years old.
I wonder what Gen X and Z’s equivalent of Lawrence Welk will be. Probably Balloon-Juice.
Baud
I look forward to the synchronized infecting competition.
Baud
@Poe Larity:
We’re more Howdy Doody.
debbie
I hate to think that Simone won’t get another chance at world domination, but it would be foolish to allow these games to go on.
Mike in NC
Completely lost any interest in the Olympics when they opened it for professional athletes.
Poptartacus
I love mollie b and her polka party
Poe Larity
How about an ActBlue to buy Princess Lines before the next election and rename every ship Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B through Z. Then offer registered Republicans in the purples a three year tour.
Jeffro
@Baud: lol
They should have a 100m freestyle ‘marshmallow test’, just so New Zealand could win all three medals
CaseyL
@Mike in NC: Yeah, that was a real WTF moment, not to mention the complete opposite of what the games are supposed to be. *
For me, though, the last straw was when the TV networks stopped airing the Games live, preferring to air selected bits when they would get the most ratings. Grrr.
*But maybe not. Mary Renault, who wrote a whole lot of gay-friendly historical novels set in Ancient Greece, has one of her characters attend one of the original Olympic Games. An interesting conversation happens, when a coach (? IIRC) laments how athletes are training exclusively for a single sport and not being very sportsmanlike in conduct or play. He says the training is distorting the athletes’ bodies, and blames their cities who want the prestige of an Olympic Winner more than they care about the honor of the amateur competition. The book was written in the late 1950s-early 60s.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
Yup. What really should’ve been done last year (at least in the US) was saying “Fuck you, you babies. You don’t want to wear a mask in public? You fuckers get no sports. Go read some books.”
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: Haha, yes.
NotMax
Still no summer biathlon, combining piggyback water skiing and target shooting?
//
SiubhanDuinne
?? My
heartlungs will go on ??Amir Khalid
My worst fear is that the Games will turn out to be like last year’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, but on a global scale. Nobody needs that, and it’s crazy to continue with the Games in these circumstances. I don’t see this ending well.
Ken
speaking once again via teleconference from his basement studio in the quarantined continent of Australia….
(Or am I misremembering from the last Olympics thread? No, pretty sure this is the same guy, except last time the story actually mentioned his location…)
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in NC: You mean opened it to non-rich people and non-Communists.
Another Scott
Someone from the IOC was interviewed on one of the NPR shows this morning. Very soothing voice saying everything is fine, they’re following good procedures. And it’s really not about the money because everyone has insurance and…
:-\
He may turn out to be right about it not being a super spreader event, and I feel for the athletes, but it’s laughable to say that it’s not about money.
The risk is too great. They need to shut it down.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
What I don’t get is that if the NBA could pull this off, why can’t the Olympics? Ok, no fans in seats, or only vaccinated. Athletes need to be vaccinated. Ask the US for help providing enough vaccine so they can get the jab when they arrive if needed.
For an event that spends 8 years in planning, this shouldn’t be all that hard to do.
JMG
The original Olympic Games were banned by a Roman emperor for corruption in the late Roman period. The modern Olympics have been a festival of the nationalism and corruption of sports since they were started in 1896. Many events (equestrian, decathlon, pentathlon, shooting, etc.) were designed under the umbrella “skills we’ll need to win World War I.” And yet… In my former life as a sportswriter, I was lucky enough to cover four Olympics (three Summer, one Winter). It remains corrupt, arbitrary, a waste of money, etc., etc., But there’s also real fellowship, real fun, a real flawed but better world inside the Olympic bubble. Google the archer lighting the flame at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. I was there, and that’s worth a lot of human imperfection IMO.
prostratedragon
@JMG: Wow, you saw that! Those opening ceremonies are such cornball. And I’m a sucker for them every time. The archer was a peak.
Parfigliano
The IOC is a criminally corrupt organization rivaling the GOP.
TS (the original)
Where there is a $ to be made, every good thing in the world is at risk. The days of the olympics being for amateur sports people were the days that the sport was important. The IOC looks after the IOC – that has been their role for too many years & I don’t see it changing.
CaseyL
@prostratedragon: Me, too. I’m also a sucker and cry at the medal awards, watching the flags go up and hearing the national anthems play.
Calouste
@CaseyL: Uhm, the intention of the Modern Olympics was that it was a contest between upper-class gentlemen, because only they had enough money to take a number of weeks off to travel (no air travel in 1896) and participate. If they had a job at all of course. Didn’t want to have commoners taking part who were actually good enough at the sport to make money off it.
Suzanne
@Martin: It seems like it should be feasible, but then I read today that no one is tracking if athletes are vaccinated or not. WTF.
It would also seem like they should have had a contingency for the location. Japan doesn’t seem to be ready, but the UK is doing better on their vaccinations, and they just did an Olympics and they probably still have all the infrastructure. Do it without fans.
Kent
The problem with vaccinating athletes is that it needs to be done NOW and that means going around the world to make sure that say…the Senegalese soccer team is fully vaccinated. Who is in charge of that and if Senegal has limited vaccine availability (which is does) then should young healthy athletes be first in line ahead of say…first responder health care workers?
Not every athlete is from the US or Germany.
Due to the delay in building immunity, you can’t just vaccinate athletes when they arrive.
What is completely fucked up is that Japan’s vaccination rate is at about 8%. Which is where the US was on about February 3rd. How the hell can such a modern and wealthy country be that far behind the ball? Especially if they are hosting the Olympics.
Kent
Honestly, the only country that is ready and capable of taking on something like the Olympics on short order is the US.
Kent
Fixed that for you.
Gvg
@Kent: I think that Japan did say all athletes could be vaccinated. No details though. What I have read is that Japan was for a long time, successful at keeping the virus out, so they didn’t desperately seek a large supply and their population wasn’t getting vaccinated. Then their luck ran out.
Several countries had this happen. The media ought to make this point worldwide more. Get vaccinated before your countries isolation fails.
sdhays
I just don’t understand why they can’t postpone the Olympics a few months more (I assume it’s $$$, just like everything related to the Olympics). The situation in Osaka is dire; it just doesn’t make sense to endanger so many people for a stupid timetable.
John Revolta
IOC: “Some of you may die. However, that is a risk we are willing to take.”
Victor Matheson
@CaseyL: I have to say, I think you are just not right about amateurism. The ancient Olympic Games were officially amateur but in reality fully professionalized quite early on. And in a world where only amateurs compete you get either low quality competition, a world where the IOC is getting rich at the expense of athletes like with the NCAA, or a place where only the independently wealthy can compete. There is nothing wrong with people making a living from sports and wanting to see the best athletes from all around the world not a competition of athletes who have taken a vow of poverty.
Victor Matheson
@sdhays: impossible to postpone due to television scheduling and the international sports calendar. Postponing a year was a huge undertaking that combined with the covid protocols cost about an extra $2.3 billion.
Victor Matheson
@JMG: the original olympics weren’t banned due to corruption. They were banned due to the newly Christian Roman Empire banning pagan rituals and the Olympics were originally a festival to honor zeus.
Darkrose
@Gvg: This WaPo op-ed has a good breakdown. The TL;DR version is: bureaucracy, a sense that they were doing okay in containing the virus, and anti-vaxxers:
Victor Matheson
@Martin: well one reason is the nba has 450 athletes, a bunch of which were excused from the bubble, while the Olympics has just under 12,000.
Victor Matheson
@Kent: nowhere in the us could an event like the Olympics be done in short order. The SoS of Florida offered to take the Olympics a couple of months ago and was called bat shit crazy in the Huff Post by at least one prominent economist. And as recently as about 2 months ago it wouldn’t have necessarily looked like the us would be safe by this summer, either.
Victor Matheson
@Suzanne: Actually, London has very little of the infrastructure left. Athletes villages and media centers have been converted. Lots of the sports venues were temporary. And you can just assume those facilities are do still exist just happen to be fully available. While things like soccer tournaments can be moved quickly (like the 2003 women’s World Cup due to SARS and this years copa liberatores due to covid, the sports infrastructure is just too specialized and the scale of the event too large to do this for the Olympics.
PJ
@Victor Matheson:
As far as I’ve read, there wasn’t really an amateur/professional distinction in classical Greece. Yeah, the victors just received a laurel wreath in Olympia, but their home cities/states would provide prizes that were sometimes very lucrative. And they would travel from sports event to sports event to compete (for prizes), as professional athletes do now.
The Pale Scot
Sounds like the beginning of a zombie movie
The Pale Scot
@Darkrose:
Consider that government officials have been quoted to the effect of ‘All these old people have got to stop hanging around” perhaps not so odd
Morzer
Speaking purely for myself, I am not going to watch the Plaguelympics. It’s a ridiculous, arrogant piece of posturing by an entirely inadequate governing party (nothing grimly familiar about that!).
Geminid
@PJ: I think the ancient Olympics changed over time. They started in 476 BCE. The Mary Renault novel another commenter refers to, in which the growing professionalization of athletes is a sub-theme, is set in Athens of ~390 BCE. The modern Olympics show more of an amateur, non-specialized model in its early years. Someone like George Patton could represent the U.S. in a pentathalon event in 1912. But Patton came from a wealthy family.
The Mary Renault novel the commenter referred to is The Last of the Wine. Her novels have held up over time. All but Renault’s first two or three works are set in ancient times. The Persion Boy, second of her Alexander trilogy, is the best known.
Ken
It’s SIMPLE. Remember the ioc is a licensed sports mafia and wants to collect what the contract promised. From my personal experience dealing with them in 1996 in Atlanta this was absolutely clear. They care about sport the way Trump cares about policy.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Oddly, Titanic’s sister ship was named Olympic. She had the habit of bumping into things as well, finishing her career after running down the Nantucket lightship.