The Economist February 13th 2021 37
AsiaThe Tokyo Olympics
Olympic gory
T
he reddigits on a clock outside Tokyo
Station tick off the seconds until the
Olympic games begin, on July 23rd. Yet the
closer the date gets, the greater the uncer-
tainty about whether the games will go
ahead at all. The clock has, after all, already
been reset once: as the covid-19 pandemic
swept across the world last year, they were
delayed until this year. Organisers spoke of
the Olympics as a symbol of the light at the
end of covid’s tunnel. With the torch relay,
the official start of the festivities, set to be-
gin on March 25th but with the disease still
rampant, another decision looms.
It is a more complicated choice than it
was last year. Covid-19 is better understood
and more effectively controlled than be-
fore, making the games, at least without
massed spectators, appear tantalisingly
feasible. But holding them comes with big
risks. An Olympic outbreak would symbol-
ise hubris and incompetence, and could
provoke a crisis for the prime minister, Su-
ga Yoshihide, whose approval ratings are
already sagging. The alternative is also un-
palatable: the International Olympic Com-
mittee (ioc) has, at least so far, ruled out
another postponement, meaning that if
the Tokyo games are not held this year,
they will probably be cancelled altogether.
“They have presented [the games] as a sym-
bol of victory over coronavirus, so if they
cancel, it becomes a symbol of the Japa-
nese government’s failure,” says Sone
Yasunori of Keio University. “Both options
are quite terrible.”
The reasons to cancel the games are ob-
vious. The pandemic is still raging around
the world, with nearly 300,000 new cases
recorded every day. Japan itself is in the
midst of a stubborn third wave that forced
the government to extend a state of emer-
gency until early March. Although vaccina-
tion campaigns have begun in many coun-
tries, even the most optimistic estimates
do not foresee immunity becoming wide-
spread enough by the summer to guaran-
tee a virus-free event. In Japan the first jabs
have yet to be administered. Some public-
health experts say it would be mad to go
ahead. Even some athletes agree. As Niiya
Hitomi, a Japanese track-and-field star, put
it: “To be honest, I think life is more impor-
tant than the Olympics.”
The Japanese public, predictably, has
soured on the idea of hosting tens of thou-
sands of athletes, journalists and other
hangers-on from around the world, eachpotentially a vector for the virus. When
polled in 2019, nearly 90% of Japanese
were looking forward to the Olympics; re-
cent polls show that 80% now oppose
holding the games this year (roughly 40%
favour cancellation, while another 40%
want another postponement).
Spiralling costs have added to the mis-
givings. The tab had already ballooned
from a projected $7.3bn to an official esti-
mate of $12.6bn, but government’s own au-
ditors put the true cost at over $20bn. Post-
ponement and virus-prevention measures
will add another $2.8bn to the total. The
president of Tokyo’s organising commit-
tee, Mori Yoshiro, an 83-year-old former
prime minister, added to the event’s prob-
lems earlier this month when he suggested
that women talk too much in meetings,
prompting a storm of public indignation.
Japanese media are reporting that he will
soon resign.
Yet though the Japanese people bear
most of the risks of the games, the choice is
not theirs alone. Japan’s top leadership re-
mains committed: Mr Suga told a recent
virtual gathering of the World Economic
Forum that Japan is “determined to deliver
hope and courage to the world”. So is the
ioc: Thomas Bach, its president, has said
there is “no plan B” to holding the Olym-
pics in Tokyo this year. Myriad stakehold-
ers, from national Olympic committees to
corporate sponsors to television networks,
have an interest in seeing the games hap-
pen, even in a limited form. Many athletes
would welcome the chance to compete.
Many Japanese business leaders believe
even a circumscribed Olympics would beTOKYO
The obstacles to holding the games as scheduled in July are daunting
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