Olympic Games: pandemic, unwanted guest at Tokyo opening ceremony
The Olympic rings at Yokohama Baseball Stadium, Japan, with the sun rising, July 22, 2021. AP - Matt Slocum
Text by: Nicolas Bamba Follow
4 min
After a one-year postponement, the 32nd Olympic Games of the modern era open in Tokyo, this Friday, in an extraordinary context.
The Covid-19 pandemic is still weighing heavily on this event, and between the health crisis and its disastrous consequences, Japan does not really have the heart to celebrate.
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Tokyo's new Olympic stadium, completed in late 2019, cost an estimated € 1.2 billion to € 1.8 billion.
This modern equipment has a capacity of 68,000 places.
In an almost perfect world, at least without a pandemic, he would have been a boiling pot for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, Friday July 23.
But the
Covid-19
has
hit
the world and this 32nd edition of the Olympics is no exception.
It has already been postponed for a year.
And the Japanese authorities, faced with the Delta variant, reinstated the state of emergency on July 12.
Before that, they had already decided to impose an almost total closed session on all the planned events.
Thus, for the opening ceremony, the Olympic stadium will welcome less than 1,000 spectators, between officials, foreign representatives and journalists.
Far, very far from the dream atmosphere.
The enthusiasm is gone
These Tokyo Games will remain like those of a planet hit by the health crisis. The expression "Pandemic Games" has taken hold. The 11,000 or so athletes scheduled for these Olympics are scrambling, for the most part, to embark on the medal race. But the Covid-19 hovers like a sword of Damocles above their heads. Several of them, tested positive, are already out of the race even before the ceremony. In Japan, the heart is not at the party.
The last time Tokyo hosted the Summer Games,
in 1964
, the atmosphere was very different.
The country was recovering and turning the page for good on World War II, and the Olympics symbolized its revival turned towards the world.
Fifty-seven years later, no excitement.
The closed door shatters an already weak enthusiasm.
Many Japanese have called, in recent months, for an outright cancellation of the Olympic Games, which represent a financial disaster and raise
fears of a worsening of the health situation
.
Far from creating union, these Olympics divide the country against a backdrop of political crisis.
Tokyo's burden
And as if that were not enough, two scandals splashed the opening ceremony. First there was the resignation of Keigo Oyamada, composer of one of the musical themes. The musician and producer has been overtaken by old statements in which he confided that he harassed fellow students with disabilities when he was young. And on Thursday, Kentaro Kobayashi was removed from his post. The one who is now the ex-artistic director of the ceremony was sanctioned because of an old
joke about the Holocaust
.
It is difficult not to see these Games as a burden for Tokyo as the difficulties accumulate.
The tears of joy that flowed when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) designated the Japanese capital as its host city in September 2013 belong to a distant time.
Well aware of the challenge of this global event, Emperor Naruhito, in a message addressed to IOC President Thomas Bach, paid "
tribute to all those involved in the organization for their efforts
".
And now, willy-nilly, it's time for the Games.
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These Olympics that were disrupted by political events