Section:GDN 1N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190724 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 23/7/2019 20:43 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Guardian •
39“Japan has gone from nine million
tourists in 2012 to more than 30 mil-
lion last year, and is aiming for 40 mil-
lion by 2020,” says Dr Mike Duignan,
professor of sports management at
Coventry University, who is in Japan
researching a “TokyoZones” project
looking at the Games’ impact.
The infl ux of foreign tourists has
already caused a backlash in some
quarters, despite the welcome shot in
the arm for the economy that a record
¥4.51 trillion (£33.5bn) in spending by
overseas visitors delivered in 2018.
Heightened demand from visi-
tors could see a shortage of more
than 10,000 hotel rooms during the
Games. With Airbnb heavily regu-
lated, Japanese travel companies have
chartered cruise ships to use as extra
accommodation.
Being near the water may be one
way to fi nd at least some relief from
the extreme heat and stifl ing humid-
ity that are almost a certainty in Japan
between 24 July and 9 August, when
the 2020 Games will run. Organisers
are taking a host of measures, includ-
ing early morning starts for the mara-
thons, but concerns about the safety of
athletes and spectators persist.
“This year is chilly in Tokyo, which
is very diff erent to last year, and we
don’t know what will happen next year
... We have made arrangements so that
events can be shifted if the weather
requires it,” said Yoshiro Mori, 82, the
president of the Tokyo Organising
Committee who was prime minister
of Japan from 2000 to 2001.
The IOC’s John Coates, at the same
press conference in Tokyo yesterday ,
confi rmed that spectators will be able
to take their own water into venues
and that there will be adequate shade
when queuing for events.
At Tokyo 1964, the last time the
Summer Olympics were hosted by
Japan, they were held in October. But
that schedule does not fi t with the
plans of international broadcasters,
wh o pay billions and make the event
so attractive to sponsors. Tokyo 2020
has raised $3.1bn in sponsorship from
62 Japanese fi rms, around triple what
any previous Games has pulled in from
domestic companies.
Some of those sponsors will be
showcasing new technology at Tokyo,
which aims “to host the most innova-
tive Games in history,” sa id Takaya.
Whatever technology wows specta-tors and athletes next year, it would be
unrealistic to expect the Games to have
the same impact on Japan as Tokyo- That event, and the preparations
for it, truly transformed the Japanese
capital.
Not everyone is so positive this time
around. A press conference was held
yesterday morning by anti-Olympic
activists, including Jules Boykoff , a
political science professor and former
member of the US Olympic football
team, and Misako Ichimura of the local
“Hangorin no Kai NoOlympics2020”
group. Ichimura called for the can-
cellation of next year’s Games and
condemned the use of public money
when reconstruction from the March
2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear
disaster has yet to be completed.
Boykoff said the Olympics were an
excuse for the militarisation of public
spaces, accused the events of “traf-
fi cking in plastic nationalism” and
urged people to look “under the shim-
mering shiny surface” of the Games at
who really benefi ts from them.
Protests have been relatively low-
key and even the most ardent activists
realise the Games will be going ahead
next summer.
Petty feels the heat
of hockey qualifying
Why England’s women face
do-or-die pressure in Europe
to enable Great Britain
to defend their title in TokyoPaul MacInnesS
uzy Petty is in an
unusually stressful
position. The 27-year-old
has forced her way into
the Great Britain women’s
hockey team. As they are
the Olympic champions one might
think they should be getting set for
Tokyo but, thanks to the condensed,
fraught nature of qualifi cation for
next year’s Games in hockey, the
next few weeks are likely to be the
most nerve- racking of her sporting
life.
“It is a real pressure to qualify and
that’s why I don’t really like talking
about it ,” Petty says. “We don’t have
any other opportunity to qualify. It’s
either the European Championships- if you win that, you go - or it’s this
Olympic qualifi er match.
“We haven’t had a chance to
qualify yet, so we’re going out to
the Euros to win. If we don’t do
that, though, we have to go to the
next step. It’s huge. There are two
matches back-to-back, Saturday
then Sunday, and whoever wins
goes.”
To complicate matters further,
Petty will go to the European
Championships representing
England. Any qualifi cation for
the Games by that route, with the
tournament beginning on 16 August ,
will be done by a part on behalf of
the whole. The Olympic play-off s,
however, would be contested as
Team GB.
“At the moment, as England, we
do see ourselves as the GB team ,”
Petty says. “As an England team we
feel the pressure of qualifying. But
we’re a GB programme, so we have
talked about those two games. We’ve
had past athletes who have been
through the process come in and talk
us through their experiences.”
The programme Petty mentions is
another important factor. Funding
from UK Sport is, as with every
Olympic discipline, dependent on
success. Victory over the course of
the summer is imperative not just to
confi rm the champions’ attendance
in Tokyo but to safeguard the health
of the sport.
“We’re very focus ed on keeping
our funding,” says Petty, “as in,
we need to do well in Tokyo and
we know that. The centralised
programme has just been the making
of the sport. We’re very conscious
that we’re so privileged to be out
there. It’s made us better as a team
and we’re conscious that we want to
give all the kids coming through the
opportunity to become a full-time
athlete.
“Then obviously there’s the part
of inspiring all the kids [who won’t
turn pro]. We actually played at the
Stoop two weeks ago and got 12,000
people, which just shows how far
hockey has come in the past few
years. It was really amazing and I
think, as a squad, we do all that we
can to make sure the kids see and
want to engage with the sport.”P
etty’s own personal
ambitions don’t spring to
the fore when she speaks ;
she is happy to put the
collective fi rst. But she
knows what a special
opportunity an Olympics presents
after seeing her housemate, Laura
Unsworth, triumph in 2016.
“I lived with Laura before she
went to Rio ,” Petty says. “I think
when you’re not part of it and you’re
just watching on television you
think, ‘ Oh, the Olympics are on ;
that’s really cool.’
“But when you have actually
packed someone’s bags and gone
to the airport with them and four
weeks later they come back with a
medal – and a gold one at that – it
changes things. It’s something you
don’t actually think is attainable but,
when you’re that close, you think,
‘ Goodness, I could actually do this.’
To do that, to take part in something
I watched when I was two or three
years old and to go with such a great
group of girls, that would make it
really special.”▼ Suzy Petty (left) will play
for England in a bid to help
Great Britain qualify
CHRISTOPHER LEE/GETTY IMAGES▼ A new national stadium,
still being built, will host
the Olympic ceremonies
JIJI PRESS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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