Tokyo (AFP)

When they took the historic decision in March 2020 to postpone the Tokyo Olympics for one year, the organizers assured that they would open in July 2021 as a sign of humanity's triumph over the coronavirus, but to six months from the deadline, this hoped-for victory still seems uncertain.

The path to the second summer Olympics in history organized in Tokyo, after those of 1964, has never been easy: accusations of bribes, inflation of the costs of the new Olympic stadium or related concerns. the often scorching summer temperatures in the Japanese capital.

These adventures were nothing compared to the real wall that the organizers have come up against since the beginning of 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic which led to the postponement of the event, a first in peacetime.

And with the current global upsurge of the coronavirus, including in Japan, the holding of the Games, rescheduled from July 23 to August 8, 2021, is far from certain.

Officially, the organizers continue to say loud and clear that they will be able to stand this summer, even if the virus is not under control by then.

"Holding the Games is our inflexible course and, at this stage, we are not discussing anything else," Organizing Committee Director General Toshiro Muto told AFP this week.

"Anything can happen," however, slipped last week Taro Kono, a key Japanese minister, adding that the organizers should "think about contingency plans" just in case.

- Postponement to 2024?

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The hearts of the Japanese are no longer there: a recent poll showed that 80% were opposed to the holding of the Olympics this year, 35% being in favor of their cancellation and 45% of a further postponement.

Former athletes are also skeptical, such as the Briton Matthew Pinsent, quadruple Olympic rowing champion, who recently considered "grotesque" to organize the Olympics this year.

He even proposed to postpone the Tokyo meeting to 2024 and consequently postpone the Paris Olympics to 2028.

The preparations for the Australian Open tennis tournament (February 8-21) may foreshadow what awaits the organizers of the Olympics this summer, with several players infected and dozens of others forced to confine themselves after cases of coronaviruses detected on board their flights.

A state of emergency has been reinstated in Tokyo and ten other Japanese departments and the Olympic organizing committee has put in place measures supposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the Games, even without a vaccine, such as regular tests for athletes, travel limited to Olympic venues and spectators silenced to avoid postilions.

If crucial questions have not yet been decided, such as the presence or not of spectators coming from abroad, it is already certain: the Tokyo Games will be the most expensive summer Olympics in history.

The additional cost caused by the postponement and the implementation of a health protocol in the face of the coronavirus has been estimated at nearly 300 billion yen (2.3 billion euros), bringing the total of the official budget of the Tokyo Olympics to 1.644 billion yen (13 billion euros).

And this amount does not include other heavy investments by the Japanese state related to the event between 2013 and 2018.

- The hope of vaccines -

While athletes, some of whom are still struggling to get their qualifications for the Olympics, and thousands of volunteers are in limbo, the start of the Olympic torch relay is still scheduled for March.

For the time being.

A cancellation would be a blow to the Olympic movement as well as to the national pride of Japan.

Tokyo had already been deprived of the 1940 Olympics, reassigned to Helsinki and then quickly canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.

Japanese officials hope popular support for the Games will improve in the coming months, especially with the arrival of coronavirus vaccines.

A first vaccine should be authorized by the end of February in Japan, in order to first inoculate people at risk.

Vaccination should not be compulsory for athletes and the public in Tokyo, but President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach has proposed to make "great efforts" to ensure that as many participants and spectators as possible are vaccinated beforehand.

A potentially controversial subject: should athletes be considered a priority for vaccination?

This could be necessary to ensure the safety of the Tokyo Olympics, recently estimated Dick Pound, a senior IOC official.

© 2021 AFP