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And all this so that, when the goal at

Narita airport appears

, the last (or so we think) of the controls, the umpteenth volunteer appears and asks you, with exquisite education, yes, the yellow paper. The happy yellow paper. The one with whom it all started. A yellow sheet of paper with four large capital letters: OCHA. What master key to enter the Tokyo Olympics. Kafka would feel fulfilled.

But you have to go back almost 24 hours to start at the beginning of the adventure - the odyssey was long before, we'll explain. A few special envoys trying to reach a Games in the other part of the world in the midst of a pandemic. Perhaps the most cautious country with the virus. But it is that Japan, specifically Tokyo (on Sunday it registered

1,008 infections

and lives a fourth state of emergency), was in charge of organizing the event that was not in 2020, but yes or yes - despite the rejection of its inhabitants- , it had to be in 2021.

You have to go back to Adolfo Suárez airport, where, so as not to be too early, you get the first queue to

check in at British Airways

, the company that takes us to Japan via London. And that traffic jam of an hour and a half to enter just 10 minutes before a flight that already leaves late, will undoubtedly be the worst of the day. Because in Tokyo all the controls will be scrupulous, but so dynamic and polite, that the traveler accepts them with a much better predisposition than the national chaos of the departure.

You have prepared so many papers in the previous days that you even want to challenge at the counter. 'Come on, ask me what you want.' The two PCRs (

96 and 72 hours before)

in the indicated laboratories (not just any works), with their 'Fit to fly' certificates in Japanese, the Japanese government web questionnaire and its generated QR, another form for the British government. Carrying a valid passport is like wearing a mask well on. Banal problems of the past are taken for granted. We don't even talk about the suitcase.

On

the stopover in London

everything is simpler, although some had to resubmit all the documents. And on the flight, so as not to get bored in the more than 10 hours crossing the planet, another three pieces of paper. That one thinks that what for, with everything we carry. Mistake: they matter too.

But the key to everything, going back to the beginning, is in the OCHA (

Online Check-in and Health report App

). That it is not a card game. It is an app that must be downloaded together with the COCOA (COVID-19 Contact App). And that, when the organizing committee agrees to approve the 'Activity plan' that the designated CLO (Covid Liaser Officer) has had to elaborate laboriously (calls, more calls and many emails for weeks and the feeling of absolute helplessness so many times, priceless the stoic work of Javi Sánchez), begins to work. If you have not been lost among so many acronyms, imagine the journalist with his folder full of printed papers.

The fact is that the Activity plan, where most of those sent have to accept at least a three-day quarantine (which is four, since day zero counts) at the Tokyo hotel as soon as they arrive, is nothing other than the receipt of what does one go to that city (with which one is falling). EL MUNDO's envoys were deemed valid on Sunday 18, 20 hours before the flight. And it was like a goal from Iniesta. Well, with the OCHA there is a yellow piece of paper and with the yellow piece of paper almost all the doors are opened. The BRAND envoys from the same flight, who knows why, the Activity plan was not approved, so at this time, almost six after landing, they were still there, without their yellow folio, stuck in the first box.

Because now comes the gymkhana.

First control, all individual, all with dozens and dozens of very kind volunteers, to present the two previous PCRs.

In Japanese.

Go ahead.

One of the first controls in Narita.EM

Next step, another record in which to check the accepted and approved quarantine.

Third,

saliva analysis

.

For which you have to wait a while for the results.

Fourth, quarantine again, this time you have generated a QR.

And, almost two hours after disembarking, they move on to the next station, the one that was already cumbersome under normal circumstances.

Collect the Olympic accreditation and pass immigration and customs controls.

Three more and they go ... Ah, the suitcase!

There it is, spinning on the tape, of course.

Journalists collecting the Olympic accreditation.EM

"So many rules for preventing the infection", apologizes the umpteenth smiling volunteer.

Because as soon as you leave the door, there is another waiting to indicate the bus that takes you to a taxi rank and from there, alone, the entrance to the hotel, which makes you want to raise your arms like Van Aert on the Champs-Élysées .

24 hours have passed, a thousand controls and more stamps than on the Camino de Santiago and they only wait

four days locked in the room

and a daily test plan to start covering the 32nd Games in history, the Coronavirus Games.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Japan

  • London

  • THE WORLD

  • British Airways

  • Adolfo Suarez

  • sports

  • HBPR

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See links of interest

  • Last News

  • Tokyo 2021

  • 2021 business calendar

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  • Master investigative journalism