Organizers of the Tokyo Olympic Games meet yesterday for talks expected to bar overseas fans from this summer’s pandemic-delayed Games, in a bid to reduce COVID-19 risks and win over a skeptical public.
The move would be an unprecedented decision that would further scale back once-grand ambitions for the event amid the pandemic.
When the decision to postpone the Games was taken last year, officials said the delay would allow them to hold the event as “proof of humanity’s triumph over the virus.”
Instead, the Games are shaping up to be a largely television event for most of the world, with little of the international party atmosphere that usually characterizes the event.
Yesterday’s meeting brought together officials from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee, local Olympic organizers, the Tokyo city government and the Japanese central government.
Their decision has over the past few been widely anticipated, with leaks suggesting that organizers believe a bar on overseas fans is the only option, as they work to make the Games safe despite the pandemic.
The IOC has reportedly sought limited exemptions for some overseas guests, but the rules are likely to be strict.
Japanese Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games Seiko Hashimoto has said that it would be “difficult” for even the families of foreign athletes to attend.
Just how many domestic spectators would be allowed in Olympic venues this summer has yet to be decided.
Organizers originally suggested that they would rule on that by next month, but IOC president Thomas Bach has said that the decision could be pushed closer to the July 23 opening ceremony.
Whatever they decide, there is no doubt that barring overseas fans would help make the Games very different from past events.
“It has never happened that foreign spectators were banned from entering the host country at the time of the Games, even during the Spanish flu at the time of the Antwerp 1920 Olympic Games,” said Jean-Loup Chappelet, a Switzerland-based researcher who specializes in Olympic history. “Even for Athens 1896, [an] agency organized packages for those who wanted to attend the first modern Games.”
When the Tokyo Olympics were postponed last year, organizers and Japanese officials had hoped that the pandemic would be receding by early this year.
They proclaimed that the event would mark the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and a celebration of the end of a global crisis.
However, even with COVID-19 vaccines rolling out in much of the world, the virus continues to cause havoc, and the narrative from Olympic officials looks to be changing.
In an interview last week, Tokyo Olympic Games Organizing Committee chief executive officer Toshiro Muto acknowledged that the virus situation in the Japanese capital remained “extremely serious” and talked about the Tokyo Games as offering “solidarity” during a difficult time.
The Japanese public remains skeptical about the safety of the event, with a majority opposed to holding it this year and favoring either cancellation or further postponement.
However, organizers and Games officials have said that neither of those are options, and they have put together virus rulebooks they say would ensure that the Tokyo Games are safe regardless of the pandemic.
The IOC is also encouraging athletes to get vaccinated, even securing a supply of doses from China to offer to those in countries without advanced inoculation programs.
The year-long delay and virus safety countermeasures have helped balloon the Tokyo Games’ already mammoth budget to an eye-watering ¥1.64 trillion (US$15.1 billion), making the Tokyo Games potentially the most expensive summer Olympics in history.
A decision to bar overseas spectators is likely to put a new hole in organizers’ budget, with an estimated 900,000 tickets reportedly already sold to fans abroad.
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