But the Grand Start of the Olympic Torch Relay in Fukushima was closed to the general public on Thursday, as members of Japan’s girls’s soccer workforce ready to kick off the flame’s 121-day home journey to Tokyo.
With prices and logistical challenges mounting amid the pandemic, public help for the blockbuster sporting occasion has fallen to an all-time low in Japan. Earlier this yr, a ballot by public broadcaster NHK confirmed 77% of these surveyed need the Tokyo Games both canceled or postponed additional.
As the pandemic continues to roil the world and organizers grapple with the complexities of holding the mega sporting occasion later than deliberate, many are asking if the Olympics have misplaced their luster.
Tarnished spectacle
But it will be exhausting to discover an instance of an Olympic Games free from political, financial or cultural scandal, in accordance to Lee Jung-woo, an knowledgeable on sports activities diplomacy and worldwide relations on the University of Edinburgh.
Lee cites as examples the Nazi propaganda-tarnished 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Mexico City in 1968, when the Games adopted a navy bloodbath of unarmed civilians protesting in opposition to the occasion being held there.
Another situation is that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — who resigned in August — initially meant to use the Olympics as a platform to construct his reelection marketing campaign, tainting the general public notion of the Games from the beginning, in accordance to Simon Chadwick, director of Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School in France.
“I don’t think there was ever any popular consensus or agreement across Japan that the country needed to host the Olympic Games,”‘ he mentioned.
In Fukushima, emotions towards the Olympics are combined.
The relay is a second of non-public triumph for Takayuki Ueno, 46, a torchbearer from Minamisoma metropolis whose 8-year-old daughter, 3-year-old son, and oldsters died within the 2011 tsunami. “I am going to run with a smile, so that my parents and children that I lost won’t worry about me,” he mentioned.
High college pupil, Ryoji Sakuma, was solely in a position to return to Katsurao village three years in the past when evacuation orders lifted. The 16-year-old torchbearer helps out on his household’s dairy farm and mentioned he wished to present the world how a lot Fukushima had recovered, and that, regardless of rumors, its produce is protected to eat.
But Saki Ookawara, spokeswoman for a company that advocates for evacuees displaced by the nuclear meltdown, mentioned the federal government is utilizing the Olympics as a political device to present Japan has overcome repercussions of the triple catastrophe, when that’s not strictly the case.
Although many communities have rebuilt, there are as many as 35,703 nuclear evacuees nonetheless unable to return to their houses in Fukushima prefecture as of this month, in accordance to the native authorities. “I don’t understand why Japan is hosting an Olympics when the nuclear disaster has not been fully resolved,” mentioned Ookawara.
Spotlight on Japan
The complete symbolism of the Olympics and torch relay has modified amid the pandemic, in accordance to Barbara Holthus, deputy director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies.
“The original idea for Tokyo was to show the world how cool Japan is — it was an opportunity for the country to reimagine itself and to come together as one. Forty million visitors were expected to visit Japan in 2020 to give the country an economic boost — but none of that is happening. The Olympics are failing in all instances,” mentioned Holthus.
Pulling off the world’s most advanced sporting occasion, involving greater than 11,000 athletes from over 200 international locations who should be saved protected, may also be no straightforward feat.
Organizers are actually racing to decide how Tokyo can stage the occasion safely, particularly contemplating the capital solely lifted its third state of emergency on Monday following a 3rd wave of infections.
Authorities should work out how to defend not solely athletes, but in addition residents of the world’s most populous metropolitan space, a frightening job contemplating Japan’s big aged inhabitants and its slower-than-expected rollout of coronavirus vaccines.
Ayako Kajiwara, a nurse who works in a hospital close to Tokyo, mentioned she hoped vaccinations could be sped up within the nation to higher defend the inhabitants. “Some people in Japan think the Games should be canceled (but) others have already bought tickets for events,” she mentioned.
“For me, the Olympics represents the idea of the world coming together and I’d like to have some hope. I worry what will happen if it doesn’t go ahead as the taxpayers might bear the burden,” she added.
As Tokyo 2020 would be the first mega sporting occasion held in the course of the pandemic, the well being and security measures applied — whether or not profitable or not — might function helpful markers for future worldwide sporting competitions.
“In that sense, Tokyo’s anti-coronavirus programme would be marked as a long-lasting legacy of this Olympic Games,” mentioned Lee.
Olympic legacy
The most profitable Games are these designed to depart behind a constructive legacy, in accordance to Chadwick, the sports activities enterprise knowledgeable.
Similarly, 9 years after internet hosting the 2012 Olympics, London has managed to draw enterprise and guests to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park — a former post-industrial district within the east of the British capital.
Lee, the sports activities diplomacy knowledgeable, mentioned the 2024 Summer Games in Paris adopted by the Los Angeles Games in 2028 present Western democracies nonetheless need to host the Olympics.
However, as host international locations and their populations issue within the excessive financial and environmental prices of the Olympics, it’s authoritarian regimes that have embraced the Games as a soft-power device.
“Non-liberal emerging powers tend to stage the Olympics at all costs in order to impress world audiences,” mentioned Lee.
Future Games
In 2019, the IOC mapped out new guidelines that may require future bidders for Olympic host metropolis to win a referendum at house earlier than coming into the race.
That transfer aimed to in the reduction of on costly bidding races and forestall wasteful “white-elephant” tasks that break the bank to construct however serve little objective in the long term.
The rule modifications may additionally pave the way in which for smaller cities to be part of the bidding for host metropolis, Lee mentioned.
The IOC’s alternative of Brisbane, provincial capital of Australia’s Queensland, as “preferred host” for the 2032 Summer Games, exhibits the course of the Olympics has already shifted, in accordance to Lee.
Lee mentioned the IOC picked Brisbane as a result of town had already hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games collectively with the Gold Coast, additionally in Queensland. “This means that Brisbane does not have to build new sporting facilities and athlete villages. This would make the Olympic Games in Brisbane a more sustainable choice than any other candidate cities for the 2032 Olympics,” Lee mentioned.
Additionally, Australia is among the few Covid-safe nations on the earth now, and this state of affairs might have added a extra aggressive edge to Brisbane’s Olympic marketing campaign, he mentioned.
Back close to Tokyo, Kajiwara, the nurse, mentioned final yr she utilized for a lottery, which lined 10 sports activities comparable to basketball, soccer, rhythmic gymnastics and observe. She acquired a coveted ticket to watch the boys’s 100-meter final. She simply hopes she will nonetheless go.
CNN’s James Griffiths, Selina Wang and Joshua Berlinger contributed to this report from Hong Kong and Tokyo.
