The Games of Uncertainty are finally here

TOKYO - In that 2013 session in Buenos Aires, when Tokyo sank Madrid’s illusions and then Istanbul’s, the back and forth between the promoters of the Japanese bid for the Olympic Games and the international press was summed up in one word that generated tensions: Fukushima.

So strange has the world become, so messed up, that both sides miss the fears and incessant press questions about the 2011 catastrophe. It seems incredible, but the aftermath of that combination of tsunami and nuclear disaster was easier to handle for Tokyo 2020 than what was unleashed starting in the first weeks of 2020.

Today there is talk of viruses and variants of all kinds, of coronaviruses and covid-19, of bubbles and contagions, of infinite controls and ever-increasing threats to citizens so that they will agree to be controlled. Of the inevitability of ever more frequent pandemics.

Thus, in this context, the Games of the twenty-second Olympiad, Tokyo 2020, begin today.

Games that say 2020, but take place in 2021.

Games without spectators in the stands.

A Games with an opening ceremony in an empty stadium.

A Games that ask to applaud, not to shout.

And no high fives.

As never before, the path of the next two weeks of the Olympic celebration is an unknown. Starting from the very concept of celebration, can one speak of celebration in these circumstances?

The more than 10,000 athletes, who a year ago followed the cancellation of the Games with anguish, will say yes. When August 8 arrives, a few of them will have medals around their necks. For them, it will have been worth it, even if life in the Olympic Village doesn’t come close to the vibrancy and joy of the Games.

Within that group of athletes, there will be a handful for whom Tokyo is a dream come true: surfers, skateboarders, karate and sport climbers, who are making their Olympic debut. Or those in baseball and softball, a Japanese passion, who are returning. Or a megastar like the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who is seeking in Tokyo something unprecedented in history: the Golden Slam in men’s tennis.

But the outlook is, on the whole, enormously complex. IOC President Thomas Bach already said it days ago: he and his closest team spent days without sleep amid the many uncertainties and difficult decisions they had to make.

And Emperor Naruhito told Bach himself on Thursday: “Managing the Games, while taking all possible measures against covid-19 at the same time, is far from being an easy task”.

“I would like to pay tribute for their efforts to all those who have been involved in the organization of the Games in the various venues,” he added.

Giovanni Malagò, president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and with the challenge of Milano/Cortina 2026 in his hands, was, when speaking with Around the Rings, more direct than the 61-year-old Japanese emperor in analyzing Bach’s performance: “He was a giant, a phenomenon. Because everything was very complicated, it was very complicated to look for the key to the solution of all these problems, which were very different from what they were believed to be when the covid appeared.”

The covid-19 and a question: how is it possible that Japan, a technological power and the world’s third largest economy, did not have most of its population vaccinated on the date of the Games? “A cultural problem,” says Malagò. “Impossible to understand this if you are not Japanese.”

Taro Kono, the minister in charge of covid-19 vaccination, said this week that by October 80 percent of the population over 12 will be fully vaccinated.

Too late to save the Games, which will be held in the context of a 15 percent fully vaccinated population and with many Japanese fearful of visitors, whom they see as potential spreaders of the virus. With an important addition: if anything makes things easier in the very complex days of Tokyo, it is the invariable, permanent and comforting friendliness of the Japanese.

The IOC, which to “citius, altius, fortius” has just officially added “together” to the Olympic motto coined by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894, must resign itself in Tokyo to the fact that the pandemic will disqualify something vital to the spirit of the Games: opportunities for all.

It is difficult to say that in the case of many African athletes who were unable to prepare adequately or, directly, had to give up being in Tokyo.

As never before, global asymmetries had an impact on the Games. Latin Americans, Africans and part of the Asians could not prepare, in general, in the same conditions as North Americans and Europeans.

They will probably be, from a television point of view, the Games farthest from reality. Recorded sound of spectators, virtual applause from all over the world, shots that avoid empty stands? What you see and experience on TV will be quite different from what you see and experience in Japan. But perhaps Tokyo 2020 will set a precedent for future events. It should not be ruled out.

When Japan decided in July 2011, just four months after the Fukushima reactor meltdown, to bid for Tokyo, the slogan was “Recovery and Reconstruction Games.” Fukushima, devastated ten years earlier, opened the Games this week as the venue for baseball and softball.

Good news for a region and a people that suffered a chilling tragedy. The amazing thing is that today, ten years later, everything is so complex that the best idea is not to come up with any slogans.

Friday night’s opening ceremony will give the first of the signs on a road of uncertainty. The best possible recipe for Tokyo 2020 is, as athletes often say, one day at a time and one game at a time.

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