After a year-long delay, 18 months of perpetual crisis and bitter controversy at every turn, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has finally begun.
But with just two days to go until the opening ceremony and with events already underway (Sweden’s women’s football team thrashed the US 3-0 today), the threat of cancellation still looms large.
The host city, Tokyo, is in a state of emergency because of surging cases of coronavirus. While Japan’s vaccine drive is starting to gain steam, just seven per cent of its citizens are fully immunised. The country’s relative scarcity of Covid cases (around 850,000 in total compared to the UK’s 5.5 million) means there are lower levels of natural immunity in the population.
Polls in Japan have shown widespread support for cancelling the Games amid fears that the presence of thousands of athletes, officials and journalists will lead to a public health disaster. But many are now resigned to it; opposition has softened since Joe Biden and other G7 leaders threw their support behind the Games earlier this month.
Health officials have advised that it should not go ahead, while politicians and the Games’ organisers are desperate for the 32nd Olympiad not to be remembered as a super spreader event. Tokyo Olympics chief Toshiro Muto says it is ”impossible to predict what will happen with the number of coronavirus cases” and discussions will “continue if there is a spike”.
So why is it going ahead?
Politics is one reason. Japan secured the Olympics in 2013 in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It was hoped the Games would jumpstart an economic and cultural renaissance in a tragedy-stricken country whose former industrial prowess had been diminished by decades of stagnation and which punches below its weight in international sport – Great Britain bagged four times as many medals per head than Japan in Rio in 2016.
Regional rivalries have played a part. China – an economic behemoth and host of the 2022 Winter Olympics – and South Korea, a world leader in electronics, have outshone Japan for years. Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister from 2012 who stepped down last year, believed that staging the world’s oldest and greatest sporting event would boost his nation’s diplomatic and cultural influence abroad, not to mention his own prospects of re-election.
But a soft power play designed to signify Japan’s revival is now a matter of damage limitation and crisis management. The disruption the pandemic has caused will be obvious to anyone tuning in: there will be no crowds, although the alternative might have been worse. There had been plans to allow masked spectators in but ban cheering or shouting, leading the Games to be dubbed the “joyless Olympics”. Athletes are going to have to put on their own medals.
A general election is due to be held in October and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is banking on the Games being a success. But public opinion has become so toxic that sponsors are distancing themselves from the event. Even Toyota, one of Japan’s biggest brands, has decided not to run Olympic-related ads or send its top brass to the opening ceremony because of concerns the car giant’s image will be tainted by association.
The International Olympic Committee is understandably keen for the Olympics to go ahead. It’s how it makes its money. Broadcast rights and sponsorship deals are worth around $6bn. And Japan, which has already spent billions preparing for the Games, is hamstrung by the contract it has signed with the IOC. If the country decides to cancel, it will be forced to shell out for lost revenue.
Then there are the athletes whose years of intense training have already been extended by 12 months. Cancelling (there couldn’t realistically be a second postponement) would betray their efforts and deny them the opportunity to reach the pinnacles of their careers.
All of this has led to the uneasy conclusion that the show must go on. It looks like the Tokyo Olympics will stagger over the finish line after all.
Mattie Brignal,
News Editor