Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games close without a hitch
During the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. REUTERS - THOMAS PETER
Text by: David Kalfa Follow
5 mins
The Tokyo Games, postponed for a year because of the Covid, managed to be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, despite the heavy health context.
If it is still too early to assess the impact of these summer Olympics on the pandemic in Japan, this 29th edition took place without major crises, with athletes happy to have been able to live this Olympic fortnight.
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From our special correspondent in Tokyo,
The curtain has fallen on
Tokyo 2021
.
The relay has been transmitted to Paris 2024. The Games of the 32nd Olympiad are over.
The Japanese authorities will not say so openly.
But they are no doubt relieved that this event, which they obtained attribution eight years ago, has passed.
Eight years full of pitfalls
These Olympics, contested by a significant part of the Japanese population, will have cost nearly 20 billion dollars in Japan, according to the estimates of Japanese listeners.
The most expensive Summer Games in history.
The holding of these Tokyo Games has been fraught with pitfalls and controversies since 2013. A crisis that the Covid-19 pandemic has multiplied, leading to a perilous postponement of twelve months (the event was initially scheduled to take place from July 24 until August 9, 2020).
Until the last minute, opponents called for their cancellation, if only for fear of a possible acceleration of the pandemic on the peninsula.
A difficult health assessment
Strict measures have been taken: ban on foreign visitors, closed-door competitions, limitation to the strict minimum of the number of members per delegation, etc.
According to the latest report communicated by the organizers, only 430 cases of Covid have been detected at the end of nearly 600,000 tests carried out since July 1, with people linked to these 2021 Olympics, say the organizers. Brian McCloskey, chairman of the Independent Expert Panel for the
Olympic Games
, expressed his satisfaction during a press briefing on August 7: “
We have shown that it is possible to keep the pandemic at bay. And that's a very important lesson from Tokyo to the rest of the world.
"
In Tokyo precisely,
the health record continues to deteriorate.
On July 23, date of the opening ceremony of the 2021 Olympics, some 1,300 cases had been identified.
Today there are more than 4,000 daily cases in the Japanese capital.
At the end of July, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga nevertheless felt that there was no clearly established link between the Olympic Games and this acceleration of the pandemic.
Satisfied athletes
The players in these Olympic Games, the athletes in the lead, lived in a bubble, far from a population that was ultimately quite indifferent to an event in which it was unable to participate.
The said athletes generally showed their satisfaction with the organization, with the exception of certain participants placed in quarantine following a positive test.
The main source of concern for some sportsmen / sportswomen will have been the weather conditions sometimes at the limit of the bearable, between the heat wave and the humidity level.
The mercury could thus approach 40 degrees during athletics events.
An unchanged balance of power
This climate has not upset
the balance of power between the different nations
on the ground.
The United States finished at the top of the medal table (113 including 39 in gold) as in 2016 and 2012. China regained its second place (88 including 38 in gold), ahead of Japan, which "outperformed" at home for the occasion (58 including 27 in gold).
And France?
She is 8th with 33 medals including 10 gold.
The one-time target of 80 medals to be won in Paris in 2024 seems far away.
French sports players will have to work harder for the next three years.
And fingers crossed that these Parisian Olympics sign a return to normal.
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