On canceling the Olympics

The Tokyo Olympics are at a critical crossroads. The International Olympic Committee and Tokyo Olympic Organizing have to come up with a formula for deciding how to proceed regarding the Summer Olympics, which were moved to July of 2021. Whatever factors and markers and criteria they select will impact billions of dollars and seven years of preparation since the Japanese city was selected to host the Games for the first time since 1964. The event would also introduce e-games, 3x3 basketball, freestyle BMX and a fee other sports.

Currently, only a few countries like New Zealand feel safe enough to reopen their economies after the coronavirus spread around the world. Most countries are cautious about allowing the widespread mingling of their citizens again. Sports superpower America is reeling from a record number of deaths and infected. China, meanwhile, is considered an international pariah, and will likely face some backlash from the international sports community. A few decades ago, athletes from apartheid-era South Africa were not allowed to participate in the Olympics. South African middle distance runner Zola Budd hurriedly acquired British citizenship to be able to compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Will that be the case with China or parts of it?

IOC President Thomas Bach, who has coincidentally been in charge since 2013, met recently with officials from over 100 member countries to figure out what to do next. His goal was to survey the member Olympic committees on “how to handle the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.” He asked to hear “thoughts, ideas and experiences of all members across the globe.” Online, he was supported by Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi, IOC sports director Kit McConnell, IOC director-general Christophe De Kepper, and chief operating officer Lana Haddad. It seems unlikely that Tokyo will push through without fans present, as the NBA and Major League Baseball intend to do. The Games likewise cannot be held in a single venue, obviously.

In the meantime, to mitigate increasing costs of preparation, the IOC has allocated $800 million to help organizers and international sports federations cover the extra expenses of a postponed Olympics, such as longer training and allowances. The Summer Games were supposed to cost $12.6 billion, a burden split among the organizing committee, the national government of Japan and Tokyo city. That is actually a conservative figure, considering that past Olympics have cost host cities up to $35 billion. Rentals, loss of income and tourist revenue compound the economic slowdown experienced by Japan, which reportedly lost 99 percent of tourist revenues due to the international travel ban.

There are still so many things that need to be clarified, moving forward. What milestones will serve as the decision points for the organizing committee? Will the total lifting of quarantine in most member countries be one? What safety precautions would everyone have to take? Most important of all, when is the point of no return, the ultimate deadline, for green-lighting the Games? All these will have tremendous ripple effects, consequences that will impact the future of the athletes meant to participate in the Olympics.

Requiring a vaccination for everyone at the Games may be a deciding factor. But which vaccine – if any – will be recognized, and will it be available (and in the necessary quantities) in time? China, India and Australia are among the countries in the race to come up with a viable inoculation first. In the meantime, a prolonged pre-Games quarantine of all athletes may be necessary, at least until it is decided whether or not to have spectators.

Only a little of the economic losses to Tokyo can be recovered if and when quarantine is lifted: tours to and use of the venues, advanced merchandising, advertising payments. The biggest challenge will be to the tens of thousands of athletes for the first Olympics ever postponed in peacetime. Their training calendars have been reset, but to when? What other events will they have along the way to use to gauge their progress? As of now, they really don’t know what’s going to happen, or when. What about those on the verge of retirement, whose skills are measurably in decline? For an athlete, the Olympic Games hold the key to a lifetime of success, of having made it. It would be disastrous if Tokyo were to be cancelled.

Should COVID-19 flare up again, the Tokyo Olympics will likely be cancelled. It will make no sense to move it further back to 2022, where it will clash with the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games. It will make even less sense to push it to 2024, when Paris will be hosting. Tokyo is between a rock and a hard place. The IOC and the organizers only have a few months – if that – to decide what to do. The athletes are hard-pressed to maintain their conditioning, more so since they don’t even know whether they should even bother.