The IOC will make a decision on Tokyo 2020 in the next four weeks, which is understandable, but in that time people around the world are going to keep dying
What happens when the real world inescapably seeps into the Olympic bubble? Two different ideas of decisive action
Covering my first Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro I was shocked by how easy it was to get out of the bubble of the Games themselves and find the regular motion of daily life just existed for most Cariocas while a multi-billion dollar world spectacle was happening miles away.
I have thought about that experience, which produced this piece, countless times when covering the Olympic Movement. While many view the decisions within the movement as having a global impact, and to an extent those decisions certainly do, it is important to remember that for most people around the world the Olympics are the furthest thing on their minds.
Today, the IOC took a long overdue step and declared that within four weeks a decision on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be made. The statement from the IOC said that “health and safety [is] paramount,” as the organization begins “scenario-planning” for the potential that Tokyo 2020 is either postponed or held on time in July.
This came after more and more athletes, federations, and National Olympic Committees began voicing opinions that a postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics amid the first-in-a-century global pandemic was a wise choice.
Athletes have to train to stay in shape and, even if organizations ask them to comply with local regulations, asking them to continue to stay in peak shape for an event that likely will not happen in July given the current global pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of people worldwide is a choice that no sporting administrator wants to make, but also the idea of Tokyo 2020 going off not on schedule messing up the meticulously planned global sporting calendar and the countless contracts signed and dollars flowing in all directions keeping it afloat is something that is going to be on their minds as well.
Let’s take a look at the IOC’s own words:
TO SAFEGUARD THE HEALTH OF ALL INVOLVED AND TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONTAINMENT OF COVID-19, THE EXECUTIVE BOARD (EB) OF THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC) TODAY ANNOUNCED THAT THE IOC WILL STEP UP ITS SCENARIO-PLANNING FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020.
These scenarios relate to modifying existing operational plans for the Games to go ahead on 24 July 2020, and also for changes to the start date of the Games. This step will allow better visibility of the rapidly changing development of the health situation around the world and in Japan. It will serve as the basis for the best decision in the interest of the athletes and everyone else involved.
On the one hand, there are significant improvements in Japan where the people are warmly welcoming the Olympic flame. This could strengthen the IOC’s confidence in the Japanese hosts that the IOC could, with certain safety restrictions, organise Olympic Games in the country whilst respecting its principle of safeguarding the health of everyone involved.
On the other hand, there is a dramatic increase in cases and new outbreaks of COVID-19 in different countries on different continents. This led the EB to the conclusion that the IOC needs to take the next step in its scenario-planning.
The IOC is saying that in order to protect everyone’s health, everyone will being planning for the idea that Tokyo 2020 will have to be moved. In addition, Japan is controlling COVID-19, and the amount of people flocking to the Olympic Flame in the country’s northeast that was decimated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 show that there is hope that the Olympics can go on as planned, so we have to respect the will of these people and give the world something to look forward to. Also, the virus keeps infecting people around the world at an alarming rate, so at the risk of disrupting everything a postponement is being considered.
Nowhere in this statement did the IOC mention that nearly 15,000 people have died from the virus and over 300,000 people have been infected.
Instead, after discussing a dramatic increase of cases the IOC made sure to point out that venues scheduled for Tokyo 2020 may not be available should the world not be in a place to host an international event at the scale of the Olympics in 2021.
I’ll be honest, I have spent a lot of time out of my house during the last week. That being said, it is to go from the house I have just currently moved into by car to the house I am currently moving out of. During this process we don’t interact with other people and are relentlessly sanitizing everything that we come in contact with and are unpacking.
Yet, it is impossible to not look outside your car watching people congregate in areas and go out for a walk nearby other people as well. When we go to the grocery store there is very little social distancing, and people are not wearing masks every day in public.
I am relatively young and incredibly healthy, but I cannot stop worrying about the virus. I would prefer we did not leave the house except to walk our dogs in our sleepy residential area where we are not at risk of running into close proximity to other people and be at risk of passing this virus around.
My health insurance is directly tied to my job, and while it is not at risk due to this pandemic (in fact it has more business than ever), the thought of losing my health insurance scares me every day.
There is very little cohesive political leadership in the United States and I worry that it will take weeks or months for us to truly get a united handle on this crisis. The more we learn about responses to COVID-19 the more we see that decisive action early is needed to stem future outbreaks. We cannot act in our own self interests, we need to act as if we are continually spreading this virus around and adjust our movements accordingly.
Writing this out at times has been therapeutic because it reminds me of what I can control in a once-in-a-century event that we clearly were not prepared for, but will have to get through no matter what. There is only way out of this pandemic and it is straight through it no matter what the consequences. We can only mitigate the amount of harm we do to each other, and our actions must reflect that.
I worry for my parents every day, though they are in a great position to ride this crisis out. Every one of my peers in my age group fears the same thing daily.
The IOC are well within their rights to take as much time or as little time as needed to coordinate with everyone needed to stage an Olympic Games on what to do next. This isn’t the IOC’s decision to make alone, it will require Tokyo 2020, the Japanese Government, all International sport Federations and National Olympic Committees to be on board.
Athletes have used their voices to speak out against the system, but insiders were quick to remind me of the complexity an Olympic Games required and the necessity for measured decision-making when questioning the entire enterprise. One insider reminded Olympics Everywhere that it is likely the IOC had begun planning alternate arrangements well before today’s communications, but other stakeholders dragged their feet before today’s announcement.
Requests for comment from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government from Olympics Everywhere were not immediately returned.
The World Health Organization would not comment about the IOC’s decision outside what it told Olympics Everywhere earlier this month: “It is not the role of WHO to call off or not call off any type of events,” said Tarik Jasarevic, WHO Spokesperson. “As each international mass gathering is different, the factors to consider when determining if the event should be cancelled may also differ. Any decision to change a planned international gathering should be based on a careful assessment of the risks and how they can be managed, and the level of event planning.”
However, WHO Director of the Center on Public Health & Human Rights Lawrence Goslin took to social media to discuss why he felt it would be “utterly irresponsible” to hold the Olympics.
“Our only model is Great Influenza Pandemic 1918,” Goslin tweeted. “Then cases dropped in the summer, but came raging back in Fall/Winter. Most deaths occurred in the 2nd wave. Would we want to take that chance by lifting aggressive mitigation too soon?”
Reaction to the IOC has been mixed. There is clearly support for the idea of seeking a postponement. The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its Athlete Advisory Council lauded the progress made by today’s statement, but was “eager to explore alternatives” to the Tokyo 2020 starting date.
“Every day counts,” the statement read, a nod to the fact that accelerated timelines were necessary to figuring out where to go from here.
Then, the Canadian Olympic Committee dropped a bombshell: it would not send athletes to Tokyo 2020 if the dates were not postponed. The COC is led by an IOC member, Tricia Smith.
It seems every hour a new development is occurring as the world tries to combat COVID-19. Behind every decision lives are at stake in every area of the world. Looking back at the 1918-19 influenza pandemic a clear pattern emerged: the pandemic took many months to die down, and there were two spikes of cases, initially, and a second spike after the summer months died down.
“Some countries will be heavily affected, some less so and that will be dependent on how well they respond to the epidemic in the coming weeks and months,” Joshua Michaud, Associate Director of Global Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Olympics Everywhere earlier this month.
“It leaves this decision around the Olympics in kind of a state of limbo. It is certainly something to have contingency plans in place in case this does become a real problem in a lot of countries.”
COVID-19 has certainly become a real problem in many countries. While the logistics of a modern Olympic Games are immense, at some point people around the world need to commit to working together to stem the transmission of this virus until a global vaccine can become available, putting it to bed once and for all.
In a letter to athletes IOC President Thomas Bach emphasized that “Human lives take precedence over everything, including the staging of the Games. The IOC wants to be part of the solution.”
“So, like you, we are in a dilemma: Cancellation of the Olympic Games would destroy the Olympic dream of 11,000 athletes from all 206 National Olympic Committees, from the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, most likely for the Paralympic athletes, and for all the people who are supporting you as coaches, doctors, officials, training partners, friends and family,” Bach wrote. “Cancellation would not solve any problem and would help nobody. Therefore it is not on our agenda.”
Former Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe, who worked on organizing Tokyo 2020 from 2014-16, emphasized how hard it is to postpone an Olympics given the scale of the event, and suggested it could be easier to just cancel the event.
“Many facilities are full of reservations up to two years ahead, and it is impossible to say that Big Sight should not be used for exhibitions for another one to two years,” Masuzoe wrote on Twitter. “Postponement may be more expensive than cancellation. Contrary to my wish, the conclusion is visible.”
Even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted the inevitable that in order to stage a full Olympics it would have to held beyond this July.
"If [holding the Games on time] becomes difficult, we may have no option but to consider postponing the Games," Abe said to the Japanese Parliament as reported by Reuters.
As of now, there are just under 125 days until the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are scheduled to start. As the torch relay is set to depart from Fukushima, organizers have urged crowds to avoid congregating around the Olympic Flame, people appear to be ignoring that directive: