Olympics
JAPANESE INSIST, ‘THE SHOW MUST GO ON’ DESPITE CORONAVIRUS
Japanese officials, not to mention spectators who have been lucky enough to land their hands on a much-coveted golden ticket to a live Olympic event, are fervently hoping that the show will go on.
Saori Asano, 25, who snagged tickets through a ballot to the men’s football final with her university friends, told The Straits Times: “I have been really looking forward to this event, and so I will be very disappointed if it is not going to happen.”
Tickets to the Tokyo Olympics, slated for July 24 to Aug 9, have been highly sought after.
There were over 100 million applications during the two phases of domestic ticket lottery for just 4.48 million tickets.
Referring to rising speculation that the Tokyo Olympics may be in jeopardy due to the unfolding coronavirus outbreak around the world, Asano, who works in communications, said: “This is a big lifetime event that Japan has been preparing to host for a long time.
“I’m sure the risk of cancelling the Olympics outweighs the risk of going ahead.”
Last Friday the term “chushi da chushi” (Just cancel it!) trended on Twitter, as a scene in an 1988 cyberpunk anime Akira seemed like it would prove prophetic.
The movie had famously predicted that Tokyo will host the Games in 2020, and in the scene, the phrase was scrawled in graffiti under a countdown timer with 147 days to go to the Games.
Last Friday marked precisely 147 days to the opening ceremony on July 24.
The last time the modern Games were scrapped was during World War II, and top Japanese officials at every level, including Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, have put on a brave face and vowed to continue preparations for the Games.
Still, Japan has no Plan B if it cannot proceed as planned, Katsura Enyo, deputy director general of the Tokyo 2020 Preparation Bureau at the city government, told Reuters.
“We are not even thinking of when or in what contingency we might decide things. There is no thought of change at all in my mind,” she said.
But Japan is considering downsizing its Olympic torch relay, which will flag off on March 26 in Fukushima and pass through all 47 prefectures.
Some qualifying tournaments have also either been rescheduled or, in the case of the Tokyo Marathon yesterday, scaled down and restricted only to elite athletes, while participants have been barred from entering and spectators urged not to line the streets.
The 1964 Tokyo Games showcased Japan’s rise from the ashes of World War II, and introduced the world to pioneering ideas like the shinkansen bullet train as well as pictographs that served to bridge the language barrier.
It has billed the Games this year as the “reconstruction Games” to showcase how it has recovered from the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, and in return anticipates a major economy and tourism fillip from the marquee sporting event.
Japan has already spent the majority of the estimated 1.35 trillion yen (S$17.4 billion) that the Games are estimated to cost.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) and the Tokyo Games Organising Committee will spend 600 billion yen each, while the national government will contribute 150 billion yen. The TMG is setting aside another 810 billion yen in “related costs”.
Japan has already built a raft of new facilities, including the 156.9 billion yen showpiece National Stadium, designed by renowned architect Kengo Kuma, and the Ariake Arena in the Odaiba district, a 37 billion yen site that will host volleyball and wheelchair basketball during the Paralympics.
Any move to delay or cancel the Games will prove costly to the Japanese companies that have pitched in a record of more than US$3 billion in sponsorship deals, as well as international broadcasters.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach sought to put paid to speculation of the fate of the Games when he told reporters on Thursday: “We are fully committed to a successful Olympic Games in Tokyo starting July 24.”
Fellow IOC member Dick Pound had said last week that a decision would have to be made by May as to whether to proceed with the Tokyo Olympics this year, suggesting that it would be “not impossible” to shift the Games to 2021.
But he stressed: “Our plan is that unless the elephant in the room becomes ginormous, we’re going to open the Games on July 24.”
Tokyo resident Akiho Mishina, 26, who has tickets to watch equestrian events with her family, said there could be greater focus on prevention and hygiene, in case the coronavirus scare has not died down, and that in a worst-case scenario, “it might be rather comfortable to hold the event in autumn”.
-The Strait Times
Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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