Tag Archives: Tokyo Olympics

Commentary, News, Paid Content

Athletes are No. 1

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With Thursday’s news that Japan will be able to vaccinate its Olympic and Paralympic teams, the Japanese government and its sports bodies cheered and raised a finger to indicate that the nation’s athletes are indeed No. 1 in the hearts of those who matter, Japan’s politicians and monied grifters.

The vaccines will enable the 1,000 Olympians and Paralympians and their 1,500 coaches to be vaccinated in time for the start of the Olympics — due to officially open on July 23.

Yet Japan, the nation that likes to boast it invented efficiency and quality control, is not even scheduled to vaccinate its 30 million senior citizens until the end of July.

This means the Olympic and Paralympic athletes are No. 1, and that the finger being raised by those in charge to indicate the athletes’ special status is at the same time a middle finger to the rest of Japan’s residents.

The Tokyo Olympic motto: Faster, stronger, deadlier.

The message to the population is as clear as can be:

“We’ve procured the Olympics for you with your tax money. What else do you want? Don’t you know the Olympics are for the good of Japan? We’d like to tell the residents of Japan that we appreciate you sacrificing your wealth and your health for the national good, but frankly, the Olympics are a once-in-a-generation thing and you’re a bunch of suckers, so fuck off.”

If Japan’s citizens and their health are actually more important than the Olympics, then the vaccines received in May should be turned over to the government so that 2,500 elderly can be vaccinated earlier, and perhaps save some of their lives.

Otherwise, the Tokyo Olympics meant to show the world what Japan is capable of and what a warm and hospitable nation it is, will show the world Japan’s true colors — that in the big picture, the well-being of ordinary citizens doesn’t matter.

Baseball, News, Paid Content

NPB puts Opening Day on hold

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Nippon Professional Baseball postponed the start of its 2020 regular season on Monday after an emergency meeting of the 12 teams’ representatives, commissioner Atsushi Saito said.

“How must we (pro baseball) act? We must protect the players, staff, families, but no one more so than the fans. We must protect the cultural legacy of pro baseball. That is why we made this decision,” Saito said.

Earlier, Saito said delaying the start the regular season was “unavoidable at the present stage” because of the risk that playing games in front of crowds will increase the rate of new coronavirus infections in Japan.

Opening Day was set for March 20, but it now appears that it will be put on hold until the middle of April. The last disruption this large came in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami devastated areas of northeastern Japan and triggered a nuclear meltdown north of Tokyo. That season was delayed for two weeks.

NPB executives and their counterparts from Japan’s pro soccer establishment, the J-League, met with public health experts, who explained the risks.

“We can’t play games in the current situation, where for every one person in a large crowd, two to three more will likely become infected,” he said.

“If you have games you have to make a maximum effort. If you don’t have the ability to measure body temperatures, disinfect the stadium and equipment and so on, then you can’t be said to be doing your best.”

Since Feb. 29, all of NPB’s preseason games have been played behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, the government, while urging that people and institutions take the threat of infection seriously, has put its head in the sand about the upcoming 2020 Olympics, scheduled to open on July 24.

Former prime minister Yoshiro Mori, the head of the local organizing committee said, “It is impossible that the games will not go ahead as scheduled.”

When senior IOC member Dick Pound suggested that alternatives plans might somehow be necessary, Japanese lawmakers began hyperventilating, screaming for the heretic’s head.