The least divisive statement in the saga surrounding the Tokyo Olympic Games — assuming, as many people do, that it will happen in about 40 days — is that it will be an Olympics like no other.
Overseas fans have been banned; athletes would spend what for many would be the pinnacle of their career sealed off from the outside world; GPS-tracked journalists hoping to escape their hotel rooms for a late-night fix of ramen risk being put on the next flight home.
Since their unprecedented postponement in March last year, as COVID-19 began its surge around the world, the Games have been stripped of almost every vestige of what makes them the most anticipated event in the sporting calendar.
Illustration: Louise Ting
The prospect of an Olympics-lite going ahead while the virus continues to infect hundreds of thousands a day worldwide has many wondering why the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with the blessing of local organizers and the Japanese government, is pushing ahead with them.
The official line is that cancelation would be too cruel a sacrifice to impose on thousands of athletes who have spent years training to compete on the Olympic stage, possibly for the last time.
In explaining their motives for persevering in the face of opposition from the Japanese public, health experts and even a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee, IOC officials have avoided any mention of the irrepressible force driving the Games toward their July 23 opening date.
The IOC and organizers stand to lose billions of dollars if the Tokyo Games fall victim to COVID-19 for a second time. Japan has officially spent US$15.4 billion on the Olympics, although government audits suggest the real figure is much higher. All but US$6.7 billion has come from Japanese taxpayers.
The cost of cancelation to Japanese organizers could reach ¥1.8 trillion (US$16.41 billion), according to a study by Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at Nomura Research Institute.
That could pale in comparison to the damages the Games could inflict on the third-biggest economy if they turned into a super-spreader event and forced Japan to declare another COVID-19 state of emergency, Kiuchi said.
Organizers would have to reimburse Japanese sponsors, which have invested a record US$3.3 billion in the event, on top of the estimated US$800 million they have already forfeited in ticket sales due to the ban on foreign spectators.
WEIGHING RISKS
When Kaori Yamaguchi, a judo bronze medalist in Seoul in 1988 and member of the Japanese Olympic Committee, said last week that organizers had been “backed into a corner,” many concluded she was referring to the lopsided host city contract signed by the IOC and organizers when Tokyo won its bid in 2013.
Only the IOC has the authority to cancel the Games, but if Japan decided to turn them into a practical impossibility by, for example, imposing watertight travel restrictions on all overseas visitors, it would have to bear the costs and compensate the IOC for any losses resulting from claims by third parties.
“Tokyo could be in breach of the host city contract if they refuse to host the Games,” said Leon Farr, a senior associate at Onside Law, a London-based firm specializing in sports. “In theory, the IOC could sue Tokyo for its losses, including any claims the IOC receives from Olympics broadcasters and sponsors who didn’t get what they paid for. Those claims could run into billions of dollars.”
The prospects of an IOC-led cancelation are practically nil. The organization depends on selling broadcasting rights for almost 75 percent of its income, with another 18 percent coming from 15 top sponsors. According to one estimate, the IOC could lose about US$3.5 billion to US$4 billion in broadcast revenue if the Tokyo Games were called off.
This week, the IOC’s biggest single source of income — the US broadcaster NBCUniversal — confirmed it was stepping up preparations for 7,000 hours of Olympic coverage across eight networks and multiple digital platforms.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has indicated that not even the elected government of a sovereign nation could stop the IOC, also stands to gain from the Games.
His Liberal Democratic Party is practically guaranteed victory in this autumn’s general election, but Suga must first see off potential challengers at a leadership election in September, and has reportedly calculated that a relatively trouble-free Olympics would boost his chances of leading the party to the polls a month later.
Farr believes that cancelation is still a possibility.
“Despite the legal risks, the reality is that we remain in a pandemic, and the Japanese government will not hesitate to step in if it believes the Games cannot be held safely,” he said.
“If the COVID situation deteriorates further, the Japanese may simply decide that the political, human, reputational and economic risks of hosting the Games outweigh the financial costs of cancelation and the threat of legal claims from the IOC,” he added.
A PEERLESS EXPERIENCE
When the trickle of athletes arriving in Tokyo turns into a deluge next month, more than 11,000 competitors would find themselves in a “COVID-secure” bubble from which there would be no escape until their Olympic adventure ends, prematurely or with a medal.
Some would probably have to sit out the opening and closing ceremonies, while interaction with their peers in the Olympic village would be kept to a minimum, despite the provision of 160,000 condoms that embarrassed organizers have belatedly claimed are intended to be taken home — unused — as safe sex souvenirs.
The experience promises to be equally challenging for the public. If Japanese sports fans watching at home turn up the volume on their TVs, they might just be able to make out the exertions of runners entering the home straight or the buzz of bicycle wheels on Izu Velodrome’s wooden track.
Japan has little time to make a decision on domestic spectators, with reports suggesting that those who have been fully vaccinated or can produce proof of a negative COVID-19 test would be allowed to attend events. Even they might be reduced to “cheering” their Olympic heroes in near silence as an extra precaution against the spread of the virus.
While Olympic officials insist that only “Armageddon” would prevent Tokyo 2020 from going ahead, the pandemic has exposed the IOC’s ruthless instinct, said Jules Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University and the author of NOlympians and Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics.
“The IOC has long been a profit-gobbling cartel, and one of the most pervasive yet least accountable sport infrastructures in the world,” he said. “It is notorious for looking out for its own interests ahead of those of the host city, and the Tokyo Games are confirming this in grim, yet vivid terms.”
“I can’t think of another moment when it was so glaringly obvious to the general public that big money is fueling the five-ring juggernaut,” he added.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations