Last month, a Kyodo News voting found that 80% of Japanese citizens are in favor of canceling or postponing this year’s Olympic Games. Today, the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics have promised to hold the games in the summer.
“No matter what the situation is with the coronavirus, we’re going to play the games,” Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympic Committee and former Japanese prime minister, told the country’s liberal democratic ruling party on Tuesday. “We must pass the discussion on whether we are going to play the games or not, but rather discuss how we should play them.”
When Kyodo News published its survey in early January, Japan was in the midst of its worst COVID increase so far. Cases have dropped since then, but are high enough for the country to consider extending your state of emergency. None of this really matters to Mori, who is used to being hated.
Mori served as PM in Japan from April 2000 to April 2001. The BBC profile November 2000 described him as “one of Japan’s most unpopular leaders in years”. The article also pointed out that he was “described in political circles as having ‘the heart of a flea and the brain of a shark’.”
Naturally, he was appointed to lead the organizing efforts for Tokyo 2020, although he resigned as PM with approval ratings in the one digit.
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The 2021 Olympics, however, may be even less popular than Mori. Most Japanese citizens and companies are discouraged by the prospect of hosting a global event in a global pandemic. And their concern seems … quite reasonable.
Jules Boykoff, an Olympic scholar and political scientist, told Deadspin that the comments made by the head of the Tokyo Olympic committee are striking evidence of a point that anti-Olympic activists have been making for decades. “Olympic organizers are giving gifts to Olympic critics who have long said that the Olympics are mainly a big capitalist rhapsody with sport as a convenient varnish.”
So maybe bringing the Olympics to a city is not really about encouraging global harmony through sport? I don’t think so, and neither does Boykoff.
“The fact that Olympic mediators are eager to move the Olympics forward,” he said, “as a global health pandemic intensifies, it pretty much says everything you need to know about the role of money in the Games.”
And there is a lot of money in those games. The 2020 postponement has already cost Japan $ 2.8 billion. Now, the authorities estimate that the price will rise to $ 15.6 billion. And, assuming Japan decides to prevent international fans from watching the games, they are looking at an additional economic blow. That’s why Mori and the organizing committee want to squeeze out every dollar from companies like Coca-Cola and Toyota, both sponsoring the Olympic torch relay scheduled to start next month.
At this point, nothing will influence Mori and the Tokyo Olympic Committee to have a viable plan B in case, you know, the competition in any way interrupted by a pandemic. And, no, stop, moving games to Florida is not a good alternative.