Covid-19 is still raging around the world, all walks of life are experiencing dark moments, sports have not been spared, major sports events are cancelled or postponed. As the world's largest and most influential comprehensive event, whether the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can be held as scheduled affects everyone's nerves. Just tonight, after nearly a month of debate, a consensus was reached that the 32nd Olympic Games, which had been scheduled for July 24-9 this year, were postponed to 2021, and the name of the event was still "Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games".
IOC President Thomas Bach
Multi-Party Game: How to Reach Consensus?
As a quadrennial event, the impact of the Olympic Games has long gone beyond the field of sports, involving many subjects and stakeholders: the International Olympic Committee, the host government and the Olympic Committee, 206 countries (regions), 11,000 athletes at the top of the pyramid, broadcasters, sponsors, news media and so on. Therefore, the consensus reached involves a multi-party game, and it is not easy to move the whole body at once.
As early as February 26, IOC commissioner Dick Pound said that if the threat of the epidemic cannot be eliminated after three months, the Tokyo Olympics may be cancelled. The Tokyo Olympic Committee and the IOC immediately said it was just Dick Pound's personal remarks, and repeatedly claimed in the month since then that the Tokyo Olympics will be held as scheduled. Looking back now, the veteran commissioner, who was twice vice president of the IOC, is far-sighted.
From Japan's point of view, it definitely does not want to see the postponement of the Olympic Games, after all, they have been preparing for this for 7 years with enthusiasm, and the economic losses caused by the postponement of the games and the blow to national confidence and national image are difficult to accept. Former Japanese national team coach Zaccheroni recently admitted in an interview with the media: "I know the Japanese people too well, even if the Olympic Games are impossible, the Japanese will still hold it, because they have prepared everything for the Olympic Games and have given everything for the Olympic Games." Even if other countries want to stop, Japan will not give up. ”
With this belief in mind, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee Chairman Yoshiro Mori, Anderson Hashimoto, Minister in Charge of the Olympic Games of Japan, and others have repeatedly stressed on different occasions that the Tokyo Olympic Games will open as scheduled on July 24. Even if the postponement is the trend of the times, Mori said on the 23rd that he hopes to hold the Olympic Games in 2020.
Until March 22, IOC President Bach was also convinced that the Tokyo Olympics could be successfully held as scheduled, encouraging athletes around the world to continue to actively prepare for the Olympic Games, and even explored the details of gender equality such as whether to send a man and a woman to raise the flag at the opening ceremony.
Of course, the IOC is not biased in favor of Japan, they have their own considerations. For example, how to balance the opinions of national/regional Olympic committees, how to reach consensus with individual sports federations, how to avoid violating the sky-high contracts signed with broadcasters and sponsors, and how to eliminate the worries of other countries to host the Olympic Games in the future...
Other countries and groups obviously do not have so many concerns, and the starting point and foothold of their decisions must be the overall situation of their own fight against the epidemic and the health and safety of athletes. As early as March 20, the Norwegian Olympic Committee recommended that the Tokyo Olympic Games be postponed, and the Canadian Olympic Committee immediately announced that it would not send teams to participate in this year's Olympic Games, and Australia directly notified its athletes to prepare for the 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Many athletes also hold the same view, and Carolina Marlene Martin, the badminton women's singles champion at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, expressed her dissatisfaction with the voice of the Olympic Games as scheduled: "The epidemic is like this, you have to let me continue to play, I will give up defending the title!" ”
In addition to the pressure of public opinion, in the final analysis, it is the global pandemic of covid-19 that has forced a change in the attitude of the IOC and the Tokyo Organising Committee towards the Olympic Games.
Pedestrians wearing masks pass by the five-ring sign of the Tokyo Olympics
For the first time in the history of the 100-year Olympic Games, the tournament was postponed
In the 124 years since the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896, there has never been a precedent for the Olympic Games being postponed. Only the 1916 Berlin Olympics, the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, and the 1944 London Olympics were cancelled because of World War I and World War II.
In addition, many Olympic Games, including the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, have overcome resistance such as political disputes, economic crises, and corruption scandals. Also facing the virus, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games finally opened smoothly.
But the global impact of COVID-19, which is more contagious than SARS and more lethal than influenza, is unprecedented, and athletes' training and preparation, and even their lives and safety are threatened.
How do I decide whether the Tokyo Olympics will be held normally, open, postponed, or cancelled? As early as mid-February, the IOC set up a joint task force, with members from the IOC, the Tokyo Organising Committee, the governments of Japan and Tokyo, and the World Health Organization to monitor the progress of the epidemic on a daily basis.
However, unlike the certainty of sporting events and rules, the global spread and impact of the epidemic is uncertain, and it is difficult for WHO to give a "certain and reliable statement" as the IOC expects. Before 11 March, WHO declared COVID-19 "probably the first controllable pandemic in history." On the same day, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the new crown pneumonia epidemic has the characteristics of a global pandemic, adjusting its definition from a previous epidemic to a global pandemic. The last time the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic was in 2009 when influenza A(H1N1) broke out.
As of the 23rd, WHO reported that the number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 330,000, and the spread of the new crown pneumonia pandemic has accelerated: it took 67 days for the number of confirmed cases to increase to 100,000, 11 days to increase to the second 100,000, and only 4 days to increase to the third 100,000. There is no doubt that WHO's assessment of the epidemic has greatly influenced the judgment of the IOC.
The Olympic flame was blown out during the exhibition
The postponement is just a new beginning, where is the road to the Tokyo Olympics?
The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics has settled the dust of the month-long debate, but this is only the beginning, and the road to the Tokyo Olympics is destined not to be a smooth one.
Tokyo, the host city, bore the brunt of the loss, and the most direct loss was the default of many projects. The Olympic Village in Harumi, Tokyo, was originally planned to be converted into apartments for sale after the meeting, with about 4,100 houses, and many houses have been sold. The main press center of the Olympic Games and the international broadcasting center are rented at the Tokyo Big Sight, and the leaseholder for Tokyo's largest exhibition hall next year has been confirmed. Many other venues and hotels face the same problem.
According to a number of Japanese media, the direct economic loss caused by the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics is about 6 billion US dollars, which is only the loss of the Olympic Games itself and the financial consumption caused by the one-year postponement.
Competitive sports have their own competition cycle, each sports organization often arranges events according to it, and athletes also have a rhythmic and focused preparation. Athletics and swimming two Olympic basic world championships will be held in 2021, China will also host the World University Games and national games, coupled with the postponement of the European Football Championships, The America's Cup and the Tokyo Olympic Games, such an intensive and mixed event arrangement will bring a lot of challenges to the relevant preparatory work, but also put forward higher requirements for athletes' competitive skills and psychological quality.
Once the extension is determined, the parties will also have to agree on the exact opening time, as the next series of preparations will need to be reversed according to the new time, and the global calendars of at least 33 Olympic events will need to be adjusted accordingly.
In addition, as the two major financial pillars of the Olympic Games, the needs of broadcasters and sponsors should not be underestimated. Olympic broadcaster NBC renewed its broadcast agreement with the International Olympic Committee in 2014 for $7.65 billion, and 90 percent of its advertising slots for the Tokyo Olympics are now sold out. According to the Tokyo Olympic Committee's official website, 63 Japanese sponsors have spent more than $3.1 billion on the Tokyo Olympics, which is almost three times the number of the Beijing and London Olympic Games and twice that of the last two World Cups. The extension will undoubtedly bring new risks and opportunities to all parties.
Despite the pressure, postponement is undoubtedly the best solution at the moment. This is also in line with the highest purpose of the International Olympic Committee to host the Tokyo Olympic Games: one is to protect everyone's health and fully support the prevention and control of the epidemic; the other is to ensure that the interests of athletes and the interests of the Olympic Movement are not damaged.
From another perspective, it is undoubtedly more exciting to host the Olympic Games after the global victory over covid-19. Hopefully, by then, the Olympic flame will be able to light up a glimmer of hope for people who have been through all the devastation.
(Source: People's Daily client)