Games of hope fear

Rohit Mahajan

Chandigarh, July 22

Tomorrow, Tokyo 2020 — the Quarantine Games, funded by public money but not for the public — finally starts, after a delay of one year, with a populace deeply worried and resentful due to a surge in the Covid-19 cases.

Nations treat the Olympics as a coming-out party. Beijing 2008 — ‘Beijingoism’ Games — is the most extreme example of this. After years of resentment against the west, then enriched by becoming the factory of the west, China had acquired enviable wealth and formidable power. The result was the Beijing Olympics, most spectacular as a pageant and most efficient in organisation in living memory. Two years after Beijing 2008, China became the world’s second-biggest economy after the USA — overtaking Japan.

A sign is seen as a man walks to the PCR sample collection room at the main press centre. REUTERS

Tokyo 2020, with the reputation of the Japanese people being what it is, promised to be a high mark in Olympics organisation. But for the pandemic, Japan would have done it, too, like they did it 57 years ago — Tokyo 1964 was the country’s first coming-out party, held barely 19 years after it was smashed in the second World War. Shorn of its militaristic belligerence, shaped in the mould of the western democracies, Japan showed the world in 1964 — in the last year of its teenage as the new Japan after World War II — that it was already a global economic power. Four years after Tokyo 1964, Japan became the world’s second-biggest economy in 1968. It remained thus until China surged past it in 2010.

High anxiety

Tokyo’s first Olympics 57 years ago signified a nation becoming great again in the eyes of its own people. Tokyo’s second Olympics raise anxiety and anger among people suffering under an economic recession that has already lasted decades — and buffeted by a fifth Covid-19 wave that is surging alarmingly: Nearly 5,000 persons tested positive for the virus in the latest daily count.

Japan’s economy has been in decline and the burgeoning cost of holding the Games could damage it further. There is a real danger that Tokyo 2020 might become a superspreader event — conditions seem dangerously suitable, with some 90,000 persons, including the competitors and officials, from around the world congregating in Tokyo.

Pic of the day: Olympic cut Hungary’s Maria Fazekas attends a table tennis training session in Tokyo on Thursday. AP/PTI

What’s really perplexing is that Japan has vaccinated only around 23% of its population — if the organisers were determined to go ahead with the event come what may, why not vaccinate people on a war footing? Vaccination began in full earnest only after mid-June — by June 15, only 2.6% population had got both doses.

Cheers

Depressing times — yet, one must cling to any straw of hope that could be grabbed. Perhaps Tokyo 2020 would become a standard of human resilience — “proof that humanity has defeated the coronavirus,” as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said. The show must go on. The world cannot go on and sit at home and wait for the virus to vanish. Economic activity cannot stop. Sport is big money, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — a non-profit — counts its revenues in billions of dollars. The IOC, with countless examples of venality in its operation — vote-buying, bribery in selection of host cities, etc — pumps money back into sport, too.

The huge Olympics machine tends to generate revenues in various support industries; however, with no foreign spectators allowed into Japan, and very few from the host nation allowed into stadiums, Tokyo 2020 won’t be a money-spinner for the hospitality and tourism industries.

The real cause of hope lies with the athletes.

India sends its strongest-ever contingent to the Olympics — at least three medals seem a certainty, one each in boxing, wrestling and weightlifting. If the shooters fire — which is overdue! — the numbers could rise to historic levels. The men’s hockey team looks good. For the first time since Tokyo 1964 — when Gurbachan Singh Randhawa finished fifth in 110m hurdles — India has a realistic medal hope in athletics in a non-boycotted Olympics: Neeraj Chopra in javelin throw.

With one brilliant performance, right on Day 1, athletes can banish despair from Tokyo 2020 and make people smile again. That’s the bright side of the event; the dark side — a possible surge, infections and scarcity of hospital beds — is scary. And what of those who might catch the virus in Tokyo and die? That’s a thought too horrible to even contemplate.