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In the minds of the athletes who cannot leave the Villa, the judges who cannot leave the pavilions or the journalists who cannot leave the hotels echoes a threat that the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee launched a few days ago in an email, in case someone was going to break the bubble.

"The Japanese will be very attentive to your every step and, in the unlikely event that you break the rules, you can be photographed and reported on social media."

The Victory Games, those that should serve to celebrate that humanity has overcome the coronavirus, are officially Games frightened and restricted by the pandemic.

The economic ruin that the absence of visitors and even the local public means for Japan does not matter;

the only thing that matters is to avoid one more contagion, one more, whatever the cost.

But is the situation so bad there? Any European who has seen, for example, a Wembley stadium almost full in the final of the last European Championship will ask.

And the answer is no, not at all, not at all, but ...

A very low incidence

"The incidence in Japan would like me for Spain. Its rate is around 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and in Spain we are over 600 cases. The difference is huge, but its approach to the virus is very different. At the beginning of the pandemic, Japan, as well as the rest of the Asian countries, maintains a zero covid policy. They do not seek a way to live with the pandemic, they try to eradicate it. And the organization of the Games clashes against that idea ", analyzes

Joan Caylà

, member of the Spanish Epidemiology Society, who thus assesses measures such as the closing of stands or the rigidity of the protocols in Tokyo.

The very slow vaccination rate that Japan maintains, despite having multiplied efforts in recent weeks, also responds to this way of fighting the coronavirus.

That only 22% of the population has received the complete guideline has a reason.

"For them, vaccination was not a priority task, especially after curbing the covid a lot during 2020. We must not forget that at the beginning of the century they already limited a coronavirus and that they had protocols and customs acquired from then. Now they have seen that control absolute is impossible in this globalized world and they are going faster, but it is still early, "adds Caylà.

Never with empty stands

The local population's rejection of the Games stems from those habits, from that culture of the mask, from the absence of contact, and that also defines the event. In Olympic history, everything has happened: boycotts, bankruptcies, accidents ... At the 1972 Munich Games, terrorists entered the Village, kidnapped and murdered eleven members of the Israeli team, and even so the enthusiasm around the competition remained .

"There had never been a closed-door Games or Games with the open hostility of a majority sector of the local population. In recent years there were political groups against and environmental organizations, but always in the minority. Curiously, in the Antwerp Games 1920, celebrated when the so-called Spanish flu gave its last blows, the stadium was always half empty and the press of the time criticized it ", explains the Olympic historian

Fernando Arrechea

who finds one of the keys to these Games: if it had been by the Japanese Government had not been held.

Sectors of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), the ruling party, expressed this publicly and even the emperor's environment was critical, but the cancellation would have forced the return to the televisions that paid for the broadcasting rights and the very high bill would have widened the already gigantic Japanese debt. "In addition, it would be painful for them if the first post-pandemic Games were held precisely in China, their great historical rival, in the winter of 2022", assumes Arrechea in a geopolitical vision that reaches the practical.

Because the fear, tension and discouragement that permeates Japan around the Games can be felt at every step and, of course, that will affect the competition.

There are examples in the myriad of steps that any of the 11,000 displaced to Japan must make -among athletes, officials, the press ...-, but there are gaps that show the extent to which the Olympian has been affected.

The last minute loss of Liz Cambage, one of the best basketball players in the world, due to the stresses of the bubble is the great example, but you only have to look at the lackluster lists of registered tennis players or golfers to guess what the context it will also hurt the show.

"A lot of mental work"

Not to mention the psychological burden of, for example, having to take a PCR test six hours before the game, fight or race of your life and not knowing if you are going to test positive or negative. "There is concern for the development of the Games, for the conditions in which they are held. Not to mention that competing without an audience, and that which is already normal within the year that we have been, has an effect on certain athletes", reflects psychologist

Eva Molleja

, which works with swimmers, golfers or triathletes present in Tokyo in a conversation organized by Eurosport, which will broadcast all competitions.

Molleja does not forget, in this sense, the disorder that for many caused the postponement a year ago, an already unusual fact, and the effects that this can have on performance. "It has taken a lot of mental work," he acknowledges before the abyss of what will happen.

Possibly, despite everything, a caper by

Simone Biles will

light up the world and there will be new world records in the pool and the tartan.

It may be that, after what happened, Spain surpasses the 17 medals of the Rio Games and discovers new references in its sport.

But whatever happens, neither the most beautiful exercise, nor the happiest result of the selection, will erase from the books the sadness of a concatenation of empty stands and the certainty of a defeat.

The Tokyo Games were to be the Liberation Games, the beginning of a virus-free life.

And in reality, it will be the Games of fear, of a city under cover from the pandemic.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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