TOKYO — From the moment that Japan pitched to host the 2020
Olympic Games, its organizers have framed it as a symbol of recovery: from a
decades-long economic slump, from a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear
disaster and, after a year’s postponement, from a crippling pandemic.
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Now, as the organizers press ahead with plans to hold the
Tokyo Olympics this summer, the event itself threatens to become a trial from
which Japan may take years to recover.
A series of health, economic and political challenges have
besieged the Games. Even as the organizers decided last week to bar
international spectators, epidemiologists warn that the Olympics could become a
superspreader event. Thousands of athletes and other participants will descend
on Tokyo from more than 200 countries while much of the Japanese public remains
unvaccinated.
The financial hazards are also significant — the Olympic
budget has swollen to a record $15.4 billion, increasing nearly $3 billion in
the past year alone and adding to longstanding doubts about whether Olympic
Games pay off for host nations. And the Tokyo organizing committee has been
swamped by leadership chaos, with both the president and creative director
resigning over the past month after making sexist remarks.
Through it all, the fundamentally undemocratic nature of
Olympic decision-making has grown only more glaring. With the Olympic torch
relay set to begin Thursday and the opening ceremony scheduled for July 23,
Japan’s government is defying the wishes of much of the public. In polls, close
to 80 percent say the Games should be postponed again or canceled outright.
“I don’t know any reason for why you would go out to watch
these Olympic Games,” said Hyoung Min Yoo, 29, who works in finance in Tokyo.
He had secured coveted tickets to swimming and track and field finals but now
has no interest in getting anywhere near the Olympic Stadium or aquatics
center. “I wish they could postpone the Olympics to the next next time,” he
said.
In the telling of the Olympic organizers, staging the Games
this summer is something close to a moral imperative. The president of the
Tokyo organizing committee, Seiko Hashimoto, recently cited the “significant
challenges” facing the world and the responsibility of the Olympics “to build a
legacy for the future society.”
But money, national pride and political obduracy are also at
play.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is
sustained largely by selling broadcasting rights, stands to lose perhaps even
more than Japan if the event is canceled. Already, the IOC has struggled to
entice bidders for future Olympic Games as cities have decided to avoid the
hassle and cost.
In an effort to give itself breathing space, the IOC broke
with tradition in 2017 by simultaneously announcing the hosts of the next two
Summer Olympics — Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles four years later. This month it
picked Brisbane, Australia, as its favored candidate for the 2032 event.
Inside Japan, historical currents are also important
drivers. The wartime cancellation of one Tokyo Olympics, in 1940, and the
triumphant staging of another a quarter century later are potent symbols of
first regret and then rebirth. The seemingly unstoppable push toward the
Olympics this time also reflects an often rigid Japanese bureaucracy, with some
even drawing parallels to World War II, when the Japanese public did not want
the conflict but no leader dared halt it.
Then there is the matter of China. The Beijing Winter
Olympics are less than a year away, and Tokyo wants bragging rights for hosting
the first post-pandemic Games. If the Olympics fell through in Japan but were
staged in China, that could give the Beijing government more fuel to assert
that its authoritarian system is superior.
Whatever the outcome of the Games this summer, they could
have profound ramifications for the entire Olympic movement, which has relied
for decades upon an idealized promise of inspiration and civic pride to support
enormous expenditures and increasingly onerous demands on host cities.
“When they say ‘the five rings,’ or if they show up with an
Olympic symbol, they think they can command or demand anything,” said Satoko
Itani, an associate professor of sports, gender and sexuality at Kansai
University. “But people are increasingly saying ‘no.’”
“This could be a turning point” for organizers, Itani added.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think they have realized it.”
The headaches for the Tokyo Summer Games long predated the
pandemic. Two years after winning the bid, the government abandoned a sleek
stadium design by a famous architect, Zaha Hadid, because the cost had
ballooned to more than $2 billion. After work on a cheaper stadium design got
underway, a construction supervisor died by suicide after overwork.
The organizers scrapped their first logo after plagiarism
accusations. The president of Japan’s Olympic Committee was indicted on corruption
charges related to the bidding process. Out of fears of extreme heat in Tokyo,
the IOC moved the marathon to Sapporo, on Japan’s northern island, 805km from
the Olympic Stadium.
Taro Aso, the country’s finance minister, has described the
Tokyo Olympics as “cursed.”
For Japan, the prospect of recouping its costs has grown
only more distant, after the Tokyo organizing committee said Saturday that it
would not allow foreign spectators. Without these visitors, there is now little
upside for hotels, restaurants and other tourist attractions.
The organizers say that their focus is primarily on safety,
and that they have earmarked $900 million in spending on measures to combat the
virus. They have watched in recent weeks as other major sporting events — the
Australian Open, the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments — have gone
ahead. For the Games, some countries are pushing Olympians to the front of the
vaccination line, and the IOC has agreed to supply Chinese vaccines for those
who need one.
The organizers say vaccination will not be mandatory,
however, and many athletes, delegates and others will be coming from places
where vaccines are unlikely to be fully available. Japan itself will not start
vaccinations for those over 65 until next month, and there has been no
indication that athletes will be prioritized.
Infections and deaths in Japan have never spiraled to the
levels seen in the United States or Europe, but the country is still recording
more than 1,000 new infections each day and dozens of deaths. The Tokyo region
was under a state of emergency until Sunday, and the country’s borders remain
closed to most overseas visitors.
With more contagious and perhaps deadlier variants
circulating around the globe, epidemiologists warn that the Tokyo Olympics have
the potential to turbocharge the virus’ spread.
Controlling the pathogen will be “almost close to mission
impossible,” said Dr. Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Kobe
University Hospital. “Canceling the Olympic Games would be much easier.”
Japan’s efforts to portray the Games as a symbol of triumph
over the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, where the torch relay
starts on Thursday, have also run into resistance. The nuclear cleanup there is
far from complete.
“To use the word recovery — I am really opposed to it,” said
Ayumi Iida, 36, a public relations official at a nonprofit in Onahama, about 40
miles south of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, where three reactors melted
down a decade ago. “I am embarrassed to show the world this situation.”
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