A year after Japan was forced to accept the reality that opening the 2020 Olympics on schedule was a fool’s errand, the government finds itself in a similar bind as it balances half-hearted emergency steps while once more putting on a good face to keep the event on schedule for this July.
That face-saving has been apparent in a refusal — for much of last year — to expand testing to all but those with the most obvious and persistent symptoms. Right up until international pressure forced Japan to agree to postpone the Olympics on March 24, 2020, Japan insisted they would go ahead without a hitch and that the coronavirus would be contained and controlled in time.
Japan would have gone ahead with the Olympics at all costs and said it would do so even after national Olympic committees began pulling out in March 2020. Tokyo’s house of cards only collapsed after the United States’ influential swimming and athletics federations said they were not on board.
With no U.S. swimming and athletics, TV money from the U.S. would dwindle and the games would go from an acceptable revenue-producing money pit to a black hole. The first visible sign of similar writing on Tokyo’s Olympic wall this year came Friday. Kyodo reported that the international aquatics federation is considering pulling three of its final Olympic qualifying tournaments from Japan.
Although Japan was spared the irresponsible mixed messaging on mask-wearing that turned the United States into a hot spot and the coronavirus into a political identity issue, Japan has bent over backward to prioritize holding the Olympics over the safety of its citizens.
Roughly 80 percent of those polled have responded they do not support holding the Olympics this summer in Tokyo, but the machinery is in motion, beginning with an epic 121-day torch relay to build enthusiasm for the unpopular event that has also been dogged by inflated costs, a sexism scandal and accusations of corruption in the bid process that are seriously being investigated in France — but not in Japan.
The new president of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, former Olympic speed skating medalist Seiko Hashimoto, is now in a fight with elected officials in Osaka over that prefecture’s desire to keep Japan’s version of Nazi Germany’s torch relay from entering the prefecture and becoming a super spreader event.
Although the organizing committee has assured local governments it would hold relay segments “behind closed doors” off public streets should crowds form that would present a risk of infection, crowds have turned out, and the committee has yet to act.
On the first day of the relay, an organizing official was interviewed on television, discussing the success of safety measures in place. The spokesperson’s nose, however, was uncovered by the mask, a common sight in Japan and a good analogy for Japan’s coronavirus effort. It has the appearance of complying with science and having a social conscience while being ineffective and incompetent at the same time.
