With UEFA announcing the postponement of Euro 2020 to next year, the last major remaining international event of 2020, the Tokyo Olympics, is even more "precarious". After a number of members of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee Board on the 17th agreed with the proposal of Osamu Takahashi to postpone the Olympic Games for one to two years, the Japanese media added another fire today: According to Japan's Asahi Shimbun, if the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games are cancelled due to the new crown epidemic, the people who have purchased tickets will not be able to refund their tickets. On social platforms, Japanese netizens generally regard this news as a "stop loss" move by the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee.
According to Xinhua News Agency, the IOC will hold a teleconference with stakeholders such as international sports federations, national (regional) Olympic committees and athlete representatives from the 17th to discuss the preparation and preparation of the Tokyo Olympic Games. It is understood that at present, all parties are still arranging preparations in accordance with the idea of holding the Tokyo Olympic Games as scheduled, and the current top priority is to discuss the allocation of Olympic qualifications and participation quotas.
On March 12, 2020, local time, Athens, Greece, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Flame Collection Ceremony. But the flame was stopped just one day after it had been passed in Greece. Image according to IC Photo
For Japan, for the International Olympic Committee, the Tokyo Olympics have become a dilemma, as usual, canceled, postponed... There is no one solution that satisfies everyone.
The Tokyo Olympic Minister proposed an extension
At the government level, Japan has insisted that "the Olympic Games will not be canceled", and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated Japan's attitude at a press conference on March 14 – and is still preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. Japan's official attitude is also basically the same. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike acknowledged that the WHO decision does have an impact on whether the Olympics will be held, but Tokyo "may not choose to suspend the event."
The cancellation of the Olympic Games is indeed a weight that Japan cannot bear, and Tokyo has invested huge manpower and material resources for the 2020 Olympic Games. It officially said it would cost $12.6 billion to host the Olympics, but according to the Asahi Shimbun, the actual amount would be twice that amount. Once the IOC decided to terminate the Games, Tokyo would not receive any compensation, not even the right to appeal for relief. In addition, Japan proposed a tourism national strategy in 2006, and plans to have 40 million people visit Japan in 2020, spending 8 trillion yen on tourists visiting Japan. However, at present, the epidemic has effectively reduced the number of global tourists visiting Japan, which has a significant impact on Japanese tourism, retail and other fields.
Then choosing to postpone like the European Cup seems to be an acceptable choice for Japanese society. The first to propose the "postponement theory" was Tokyo Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto, who said in a Defense of the Japanese Diet on March 3, "According to the contract with the International Olympic Organizing Committee, the Olympic Games are feasible as long as they are held in 2020." In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun on March 11, Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee member Osamu Takahashi proposed a further "postponement theory," saying, "The most likely extension is to postpone it until the summer of two years later." Osamu Takahashi's reasoning is: "Because in 2021 there will be the Athletics World Championships in Eugene, USA, and the Swimming World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan." In 2022, the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games are held in the same year, and 2022 can be used as an Olympic year to create a lively momentum. ”
On March 17, according to the Japanese media "Nikkan Sports", a number of Olympic Organizing Committee directors agreed with the plan proposed by Osamu Takahashi, a director of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games to 2022. The Tokyo Organising Committee will discuss this issue at its meeting on the 30th.
Japanese media believe that athletes are afraid of becoming the biggest victims
However, the Japanese media "Asahi Shimbun" revealed that although many directors of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee tend to agree with the "2-year extension" plan proposed by Osamu Takahashi, there are still huge differences within the Olympic Organizing Committee. From the perspective of protecting the participating athletes, the opponents explained to the Japanese media the "1-year extension" plan. They believe that the rights and interests of athletes need to be respected to the greatest extent possible, "if postponed, it cannot exceed 1 year at most".
"This disregard for athletes' claims cannot be tolerated. Athletes are the protagonists of the Olympic Games. This section of directors told the Asahi Shimbun. They also fear a repeat of a nightmare from 40 years ago. At the 1980 Moscow Olympics, many countries boycotted the Olympic Games, and the rights of athletes to participate were sacrificed. Among them were The Japanese judo athlete Yasuhiro Yamashita, who was at the peak of his strength at the time, torihiko Seto, a marathon runner, and Yuji Takada, a wrestler. Yasuhiro Yamashita is now president of the Japanese Olympic Committee. "They originally qualified for the Moscow Olympics, but in the end they didn't even form a delegation, and everything was disillusioned. This caused psychological trauma to their later lives. Athletes, however, bet their careers on the Olympics. If you extend it by 2 years, there will be such a group of sad athletes all over the world. ”
Japanese media generally believe that the Tokyo Olympics were cancelled or postponed, and athletes are one of the most hurt groups. As we all know, the athlete's competitive career is short, the peak period is shorter, for the Olympic Games, the world's highest standard competition, the participants are the top masters, some athletes in order to improve the performance of 0.01, will pay countless time and energy. Therefore, for many athletes, the postponement of the competition for two years is undoubtedly a "heavy blow", especially some athletes who are now at the end of their careers, such as Federer, it is difficult to stick to the 2022 Olympic Games. Previously, The Japanese Olympics Phase Hashimoto Seiko expressed his attitude in response to a reporter's question, "Postponement? Athletes can't do it. Hashimoto himself is an athlete who has participated in four Summer Olympic Games and three Winter Olympics, and has a sense of the athletes' situation.
On March 12, 2020, local time, Athens, Greece, at the ceremony of collecting the flame of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Toshiaki Endo, Special Representative of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, was delivering a speech. Image according to IC Photo
How likely is it that an extension will be extended?
However, whether it is cancelled or postponed, the final decision is not on the Japanese side, but on the IOC. So, will the IOC agree to an extension of the Olympic Games, or even a two-year extension?
First of all, according to the Olympic Charter, the Olympic Games are held in the first Gregorian calendar year of each Olympic cycle. Therefore, in the Host City Agreement signed by the IOC and Tokyo in 2013, it can be written that the event time can be held "by December 31, 2020 at the latest". A two-year extension is not impossible to achieve by amending the Olympic Charter, but it will require the IOC to convene a general assembly and get more than two-thirds of the vote to approve it.
However, for the International Olympic Committee, the cost of the extension is too huge, if according to the content of the previous agreement, postponed to the end of this year, including NBC mainstream broadcasters in Europe and the United States will not agree. NBC, in particular, acquired U.S. broadcast rights for a total of six Olympic Games in the summer and winter of 2024 and 2032 for $7.64 billion in 2014. In an earlier round of contract renewals, it spent $4.4 billion to get the rights to broadcast four Olympic Games, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The IOC's total revenue from 2013 to 2016 was $5.7 billion. Among the latest revenue sources announced by the International Olympic Committee, the revenue generated by the Olympic broadcast rights accounts for more than 70%. So to speak. NBC is the IOC's biggest financier. In the United States, NBC's main battlefield, every September and October to the spring of the next year, it will broadcast the four major professional leagues in North America, including the NBA, MLB (Major League Baseball), the NFL (Major League Soccer), and the NHL (National Hockey League).
So, what about a one-year or even two-year extension? In addition to facing the same conflict with the broadcaster's broadcast schedule, it is inevitable that there will be "collisions" with other major events, such as the 2021 World Championships in Athletics, the Fukuoka Swimming World Championships also in Japan, and the Just Announced Postponement to the 2021 European Championships. In 2022, the Winter Olympics in China will be held from February 4 to February 20, and the World Cup, which will start in winter for the first time in history, will also be played in Qatar from November 21 to December 18. The three major events are all carried out in Asia, and for Asian sports fans, it is of course a fortunate thing not to stay up late to watch the game, but whether it will distract attention and the strength of sponsors is the wisdom of the benevolent.
In addition, as some of the directors of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee put it: "Athletes are the protagonists of the Olympic Games." "The IOC certainly does not ignore the athletes' ideas and practical difficulties. According to Xinhua News Agency reported on the 17th, under the influence of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the International Olympic Committee will successively hold teleconferences with stakeholders such as international sports federations, national (regional) Olympic committees and athlete representatives from the 17th to discuss the preparation and preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The source told Xinhua News Agency: "The International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee are still arranging the preparatory work in accordance with the idea that the Tokyo Olympic Games will be held as scheduled." The problem now is that the qualification tournament cannot be held, and quotas need to be allocated and expanded to make the allocation of qualifications open, fair and equitable. "Before meeting with the International Federations, the IOC Executive Board will hold a conference call. Meetings with international federations were mainly to discuss quota arrangements.
On the 30th of this month, the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee will convene a board of directors, and public opinion now generally believes that this time the council will form the final proposition of the Japanese side.
Red Star News reporter He Pengnan
Edited by Hu Minjuan