There are Olympiads, which are just sporting events, better or worse organized, and nothing more.

For example, the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the 2004 Athens or the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer.

Who remembers the political background of these games?

No one.

Because he never existed.

However, this does not apply to Japanese Olympiads.

Japan's Olympic debut was supposed to take place in 1940 in Tokyo, but in 1938 the Japanese themselves refused to host the Games - perhaps because the war in the Far East was already raging with might and main and the sports festival would have turned out to be some kind of specific.

So the Berlin triumph of 1936 could not be repeated.

Tokyo did not become the Olympic capital until 1964 in a series of rehabilitation games hosted by the former Axis countries.

Before that, there were the Roman Games of 1960, after the Munich Games in 1972.

The international community and the international sports bureaucracy seemed to put an end to the past.

The defeated Italy, Japan and Germany received certificates of full-fledged powers - including in sports terms.

The 2020 games were supposed to be Japan's assertion of the rank of power of the first rank.

Including in the political sense.

Talk about the fact that an economic giant shouldn't be a political dwarf has been going on in the islands for a long time, and the Olympics could confirm these ambitions.

But man proposes, but the goddess Amaterasu disposes.

The games of 2020 did not take place, although the Japanese rested to the last in the hope that the spring infection would subside by summer and the quarantines would become irrelevant.

It turned out the other way around.

It remains to assume that by the summer of 2021 everything will be fine: the infection cannot be eternal.

About new strains, more and more evil, then they did not think.

And it turned out that the games of 2021 open in an atmosphere of heavy despondency, very far from a vigorous celebration of youth and sports.

At the same time, the owners of the games are so frightened by the dangers that the arrival of guests (at least a few) promises during a pandemic that for the majority of Japanese (87%), judging by opinion polls, this is not a holiday, but quite the opposite. In the USSR, dissident citizens were also not enthusiastic about the 1980 Olympics (as well as about everything that comes from the party and government), but the circle of these revolutionaries was narrow, they were terribly far from the people. Whereas in today's Japan, the unacceptable are not a small nation, but a very large one. A devilish difference, by the way.

Moreover, it comes to things that are quite unprecedented both in Japanese history and in the history of the Olympics in general.

The head of Toyota Motor Corporation (and this is not Moskvich or Zaporozhets, it will be more serious) Akio Toyoda refused to attend the opening ceremony of the games and said that he did not intend to place advertising related to the Olympics so as not to harm the corporation's image.

Despite the fact that one can hardly imagine anything more distant from the Japanese way of life than autonomous tyranny: “I turn what I want, and I don’t give an account to anyone, I can’t interfere with my temper”.

There are no Chichvarkins in the plant, especially the Chichvarkins, who are at the head of the largest corporations.

An extremely disciplined and ritualized country.

And if this is now observed (plus the most rude attacks on the head of the IOC Thomas Bach), it remains to assume that either the Japanese have done away with the rigid bonds that have held the nation for centuries, or the Japanese "deep state" expresses its attitude to the Tokyo holiday this way youth and sports.

"We have no time for mushrooms today."

When people of the East, famous for their strictest adherence to etiquette norms, allow themselves this, usually this is a bad sign.

The incident of the autumn of 1914 comes to mind.

The Imperial Ambassador in Berlin with all sorts of bows asks his German interlocutors to speed up the delivery of the two cruisers, because - here follows a subtle wink - Japan is about to go to war with one great power.

The hint is understood, the shipyards are working day and night.

When the cruisers arrive in Japan, the same imperial ambassador appears at the German Foreign Ministry with an extremely rude note, in fact, an ultimatum.

To the question of the dumbfounded Germans: “What's this?

What is it like?"

- the ambassador replies with a kind smile: “I said that Japan is going to go to war with one great power.

Isn't Germany a great power? "

Japan, of course, is not going to go to war with the IOC.

But by now, the imperial court seems to have a lot of disdain for the international sports bureaucracy.

Let's hope that at least this does not apply to athletes and they, despite all the disadvantages, will show competitive success.

"We are athletes - so hold on!"

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.