Why the Games Will Likely Go On

Public sentiment in Japan has turned against hosting the Olympics, but the IOC and the government vow to move forward.

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A year after they were postponed because of the coronavirus, the Summer Olympics are scheduled to be held in Japan this summer. But a growing number of Japanese citizens are calling for the games to be canceled in response to a spike in positive COVID-19 cases in the country. 

As of June 6, Japan had 43,275 active cases with a seven-day average of 2,673 new cases per day—seemingly manageable numbers in a country of more than 120 million, but still its highest numbers since January. 

Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 remains a considerable issue in Japan, as the country has fully vaccinated only 3.4 percent of its population, a result of vaccine hesitancy and a shortage of medical staff to deliver the shots. 

The recent surge has forced the Japanese government to extend a national state of emergency—issued on April 25—until June 20. The Tokyo Games are scheduled to begin July 23 and run through August 8. The state of emergency requires some businesses to shorten their hours and limits attendance at large gatherings. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Glad to see the interns doing some reporting! Thanks for this article. I knew nothing about this beforehand. When I originally glanced at the headline, I assumed the 2022 Olympics in China.

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  2. Kurt Von Fuchs

    If the US is really interested in battling corruption and child abuse we should boycott the games and be very clear that's all because the IOC is a very corrupt organization. Unconscionable to support an organization that turns a blind eye to sexual abuse

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    MarqueG68

    Nice debut, Meister Grebe. Welcome!

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    CynthiaW

    How typical that what the government and outsiders want is more important than what the citizens - who are paying for the thing - want.

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    Patrick O'Rouke

    What is it with Japanese culture that makes them so vaccine hesitant? 3.4% is atrocious at this point.

    As far as the plans go, it seems like what they've got on the books is plenty. Test negative twice before you come in and twice when you get there. If 80% of the Olympic village is vaccinated, those folks are a lot less of a threat than the Japanese people who want the games cancelled.

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      Matmos

      One issue is that those 70,000 volunteers, not to mention the spectators, are not vaccinated. It takes more than just the athletes to put on the games.

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        Patrick O'Rouke

        Ask the US for 70k J&J doses (or 140k doses of Moderna/Pfizer if they prefer) and tell the volunteers they get to go to the front of the line. Problem solved. I'm sure we'd be happy to send them for the sake of showing the world who's boss on the field.

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    2. David R

      I may be wrong, but I don't think it's vaccine hesitancy so much as lack of supply.

      Basically they didn't have a major covid outbreak until recently (arguably they don't even now) and did have several Japanese pharma companies working on vaccines so the intention was to rely on homegrown vaccines so they didn't reserve large stocks of other vaccines and didn't rush to approve others (though they have since). However, the Japanese vaccines aren't ready yet.

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    Jason Gibson

    I really want the games to occur and Tokyo deserves to have them but if they can’t then they just need to be moved

    The reason to become vaccinated is to return to normalcy. The choice to not get vaccinated it’s a choice not to return to normalcy

    In essence it was a choice not to host the games

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    Jason Gibson

    “The games are awesome. They’re incredible. These games are going to be really different. The competitions will be great. The venues will be great. The TV productions will be great.“

    Who is the official to whom this quote belongs Donald Trump?

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  8. Allen Brooks

    The Olympics lost there a way a long time ago, and the fact that money is the driving narrative over safety and consent of the local population to host in the midst of a pandemic show how complete the collapse has been for the Olympics and IOC. The Olympics make the NCAA look nearly guiltless in comparison as they profit off of taxpayers and athletes who largely get little to no benefit from the hassle involved. Either streamline and clean up the games or relegate them to history once again.

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    George.Skinner

    The IOC is a lot like a group of social influencers who manage to convince you to host and pay for their multi-day theme wedding because you'll have so much fun being part of it. After the party is over, you're left with a rapidly fading memory of the event, a huge mess, and titanic bills. It doesn't have to be this way, but the structure of the IOC has provided a nice livelihood for a global class of politically-connected 2nd-tier diplomats. They love being feted and schmoozed as they travel between cities eager to host the next event, and they use their sinecures to secure jobs and favors for friends and family. Part of the reason Japan is now reacting so sharply to an insistence on hosting the games in the waning stages of a pandemic is that it comes after years of ever more demands from the IOC. Japanese manners have dampened a lot of the reaction, but the comments from business partners have been rather shocking if you understand the context.

    The interesting development is that potential hosts seem to have finally started figuring out this game, and have reached the limits of their tolerance for ever grander events. Unless the IOC is content hosting games in authoritarian countries like China and Russia where the government craves prestige and has little regard for public accountability, something is going to have to change.

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    1. David Stewart

      Any native Southerner can recall how poor a guests the IOC and their entourage were from Dick Pound's haughty wife to Juan Antonio Samaranch's "most exceptional" during the 1996 Games. It was no great surprise then when the Salt Lake City Games erupted in financial scandal, because of these entitled twits. Regarding the Atlanta Games, forget the fact that these were one of the few, if only Games, post-Montreal to that point to not have the specter of being a white elephant financially - it was expected to almost break-even and actually generated a small profit; many of the primary venues, with the primary exception of the tennis venue, would be useable into the future up to today; and that other Games probably had snaffus regarding transportation and such. Yes, the Games were marred by the Olympic Park bombing, but this was trivial compared with the terrorist attack at the Munich Games and the Tlatelolco massacre ten days prior to the Mexico City games, when the military killed hundreds of people in response to massive protests against said Games. Overall, having gone to several events, most people seemed to have enjoy themselves and the festive atmosphere of that particular Games, which is really all that your average man-on-the-street was asking for. Furthermore, compared to some Atlanta summers, the weather was quite pleasant and generally cooperative, unlike Sochi, which had very little snow!

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        George.Skinner

        I enjoyed the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games - festival atmosphere was great to experience, saw some events, and liked the fact that it spurred earlier development of new infrastructure like a new rapid rail line that had been mired in planning for some time. However, I’m not convinced it needed to cost as much as it did. Host cities really bust the budget when they have to build a large number of facilities, but there’s also a lot of bells and whistles like “cultural legacy programs” that don’t have a lot to do with the main event.

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      CynthiaW

      Round of applause!

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    3. David R

      There's a reason why the next two summer Olympics are in big modern cities with a diverse local sports culture (Paris and LA) where not much in the way of single-use venues will need to be built; they were the only places interested in submitting a serious bid.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    Good summary, and timely. It’s just around the corner and I hadn’t heard much about it.

    The Olympics are a TV show. I’d like to see them lean into the globalization and have multiple hosts. That way you could bring it into more of the world, and not be too onerous for any single metro area.

    2032 - Gymnastics in Buenos Aires, Track & Field in Nairobi, Swimming in Auckland. Or something like that.

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