• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The willow is too close to the house.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

White supremacy is terrorism.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

This blog will pay for itself.

People are weird.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Mobile Menu

  • 4 Directions VA 2025 Raffle
  • 2025 Activism
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: The Tokyo Olympics Are Gonna Be TITANIC!

Open Thread: The Tokyo Olympics Are Gonna Be TITANIC!

by Anne Laurie|  June 2, 20217:08 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Sports

FacebookTweetEmail

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.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Help a Jackal in Queens
Next Post: Website for Illiterate Morons Surprisingly Has Few Readers »

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    Poe Larity

    June 2, 2021 at 7:15 pm

    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.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    June 2, 2021 at 7:16 pm

    I look forward to the synchronized infecting competition.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    June 2, 2021 at 7:17 pm

    @Poe Larity:

    We’re more Howdy Doody.

  4. 4.

    debbie

    June 2, 2021 at 7:19 pm

    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.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    June 2, 2021 at 7:21 pm

    Completely lost any interest in the Olympics when they opened it for professional athletes.

  6. 6.

    Poptartacus

    June 2, 2021 at 7:23 pm

    I love mollie b and her polka party

  7. 7.

    Poe Larity

    June 2, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    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.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    June 2, 2021 at 7:25 pm

    @Baud: lol

    They should have a 100m freestyle ‘marshmallow test’, just so New Zealand could win all three medals

  9. 9.

    CaseyL

    June 2, 2021 at 7:30 pm

    @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.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 2, 2021 at 7:32 pm

    @debbie:

    it would be foolish to allow these games to go on. 

    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.”

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 2, 2021 at 7:33 pm

    @Jeffro: Haha, yes.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    June 2, 2021 at 7:38 pm

    Still no summer biathlon, combining piggyback water skiing and target shooting?

    //

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    June 2, 2021 at 7:45 pm

    If it hits a pandemic iceberg, well… just imagine the storytelling potential!

    ?? My heart lungs will go on ??

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    June 2, 2021 at 7:50 pm

    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.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    June 2, 2021 at 7:54 pm

    IOC Vice President John Coates

    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…)

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    June 2, 2021 at 7:57 pm

    @Mike in NC: You mean opened it to non-rich people and non-Communists.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    June 2, 2021 at 8:01 pm

    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.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    June 2, 2021 at 8:01 pm

    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.

  19. 19.

    JMG

    June 2, 2021 at 8:03 pm

    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.

  20. 20.

    prostratedragon

    June 2, 2021 at 8:13 pm

    @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.

  21. 21.

    Parfigliano

    June 2, 2021 at 8:21 pm

    The IOC is a criminally corrupt organization rivaling the GOP.

  22. 22.

    TS (the original)

    June 2, 2021 at 8:23 pm

    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.

  23. 23.

    CaseyL

    June 2, 2021 at 8:30 pm

    @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.

  24. 24.

    Calouste

    June 2, 2021 at 8:33 pm

    @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.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    June 2, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    @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.

  26. 26.

    Kent

    June 2, 2021 at 10:07 pm

    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.

  27. 27.

    Kent

    June 2, 2021 at 10:09 pm

    @Suzanne: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.

    Honestly, the only country that is ready and capable of taking on something like the Olympics on short order is the US.

  28. 28.

    Kent

    June 2, 2021 at 10:11 pm

    @Calouste: @CaseyL: Uhm, the intention of the Modern Olympics was that it was a contest between upper-class WHITE gentlemen…

    Fixed that for you.

  29. 29.

    Gvg

    June 2, 2021 at 10:19 pm

    @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.

  30. 30.

    sdhays

    June 2, 2021 at 10:25 pm

    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.

  31. 31.

    John Revolta

    June 2, 2021 at 10:51 pm

    IOC: “Some of you may die. However, that is a risk we are willing to take.”

  32. 32.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:06 pm

    @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.

  33. 33.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:08 pm

    @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.

  34. 34.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:11 pm

    @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.

  35. 35.

    Darkrose

    June 2, 2021 at 11:14 pm

    @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:

    There are many explanations for why Japan has been so glacial about inoculating its population (which is aging faster than any other in the world). One is that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s Liberal Democratic Party was betting on domestic drugmakers to come up with a homegrown vaccine. When none materialized, Tokyo joined the long line of other nations competing to source vaccines from outside suppliers.

    A labyrinthine approval process hasn’t helped. Tradition-bound Tokyo has long required pharmaceutical companies to do soup-to-nuts clinical trials locally, rather than incorporating studies and data done elsewhere. So far, only Pfizer’s vaccine has gotten a green light from the authorities. Moderna and others are still trying.

    Over the past 15 months, Japan often stood out as a coronavirus success case. As of May 4, the country has recorded just over 10,000 deaths in a population of 126 million. That has reduced the urgency for vaccines or a robust testing program. Japan also has a lively “anti-vaxxer” movement. Skepticism dates back to the 1990s amid unproven concerns about shots for measles, mumps and rubella.

  36. 36.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:18 pm

    @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.

  37. 37.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:22 pm

    @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.

  38. 38.

    Victor Matheson

    June 2, 2021 at 11:29 pm

    @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.

  39. 39.

    PJ

    June 3, 2021 at 12:50 am

    @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.

  40. 40.

    The Pale Scot

    June 3, 2021 at 1:20 am

    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.

    Sounds like the beginning of a zombie movie

  41. 41.

    The Pale Scot

    June 3, 2021 at 1:37 am

    @Darkrose:

    why Japan has been so glacial about inoculating its population (which is aging faster than any other in the world).

    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

  42. 42.

    Morzer

    June 3, 2021 at 1:43 am

    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!).

  43. 43.

    Geminid

    June 3, 2021 at 6:17 am

    @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.

  44. 44.

    Ken

    June 3, 2021 at 7:13 am

    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.

  45. 45.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    June 3, 2021 at 9:41 am

    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.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - Albatrossity - Serengeti Day 3, Round 2 5
Image by Albatrossity (7/19/25)
Donate

Recent Comments

  • Westyny on War for Ukraine Day 1,241: The Reasons (Jul 19, 2025 @ 11:59pm)
  • Trivia Man on War for Ukraine Day 1,241: The Reasons (Jul 19, 2025 @ 11:52pm)
  • Kayla Rudbek on Saturday Night Open Thread (Jul 19, 2025 @ 11:50pm)
  • LAC on Amy Sherald, Unabashed Black Artist (Jul 19, 2025 @ 11:49pm)
  • Lyrebird on Saturday Night Open Thread (Jul 19, 2025 @ 11:38pm)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!