The Paralympic Games will also take place against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games logo is installed on August 20, 2021 in Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo.
Yasuyoshi CHIBA AFP
Text by: Farid Achache Follow
6 mins
As the Paralympic Games begin on Tuesday, August 24, the city of Tokyo is still in a state of health emergency.
The organizers, who promised an unforgettable competition five years ago, will have to ensure that the Paralympics take place in the best possible conditions.
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Tokyo, special correspondent
“
I hope everything is going to be okay.
Above all, I do not want to catch the coronavirus so as not to spoil my stay,
”says a little feverishly a former table tennis athlete who participated in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Beijing, and London.
In Tokyo, the young woman with very short blond hair will experience her fourth Olympics, this time as a consultant for a web-television.
Tokyo, or the promise of unforgettable Paralympic Games
"
Everything will be fine
," replied an American wheelchair basketball athlete kindly, regretting all the same this health situation which forced the participants to remain in a bubble and not to mix with the rest of the population.
The competitions will mostly take place behind closed doors.
Five years ago, while Rio passed the torch, Tokyo promised unforgettable Paralympic Games, ensuring that it wanted to greatly exceed the number of spectators who had taken place in the stands of the Marvelous City in Brazil.
But that was long before the start of the coronavirus crisis.
A country closed due to a pandemic
Today, the Japanese metropolis, which is close to 14 million intramural inhabitants, is still in a state of health emergency;
it is also extended until September 12.
Apart from the arrival of the participants to the Games, the two airports of the Japanese capital are as empty as a seaside resort in the south of France in the middle of winter.
Tourism has stalled here and even expatriates returning from vacation have to spend three days in a hotel chosen by the authorities before observing a home quarantine.
Coming to visit Japan to admire Mount Fuji, among other things, is not a topical issue.
Everything is done to dissuade people from entering or leaving the country.
Random crisis management
The number of daily infections exceeded 25,000 nationally for the first time Thursday, August 19, and the number of patients in serious condition was also peaking in the Archipelago, affected since June by a fifth wave of coronavirus. In Tokyo, more than 80% of intensive care beds are already occupied. The authorities are also facing a shortage of medical personnel. Above all, the Japanese state is not known for its crisis management, as evidenced by the Kobe earthquake in 1995 or the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
However, teleworking does not have a good press and public transport is crowded at rush hour.
According to our correspondent in Tokyo, residents of Tokyo and its region often live in cramped apartments, without air conditioning, and prefer to go to work.
A strained hospital system
The Olympic flame has nevertheless been installed on the edge of Tokyo Bay, as the opening ceremony approaches.
Faced with this situation, the organizers of the Paralympic Games called on all participants to scrupulously follow the strict health measures put in place and not to relax their vigilance.
“
The infectious situation is different from what it was before the Olympics.
It has deteriorated,
"said Hidemasa Nakamura, an official of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee."
The local hospital system is also in a very tense situation
, "he told reporters after a meeting of the government. 'health experts.
On the competition venues we are still busy to be ready on D-Day.
In the streets of Tokyo, we always rush with a surgical mask on the face and the city quickly empties in the early evening while restaurants and social places are invited to close their doors at 8 p.m.
Only a few districts remain lively.
A light at the end of the dark tunnel
The Paralympic Games, which are due to open on Tuesday 24 August and bring together 4,400 athletes from 160 countries involved in 22 sports, will therefore be held in a special atmosphere.
However, in a fairly recent poll, the population was less hostile to the event than it had been at the time of the Olympics.
Athletes will sometimes be supported by schoolchildren.
The Japanese government wants to educate a new generation about disability.
The Paralympic Games will show that "
there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel that we have all passed through the past twenty months,
" said Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee.
Organizers say the Olympics have not worsened the pandemic in Japan, with around 600 cases recorded among tens of thousands of athletes.
In total, around one hundred thousand people from two hundred different countries came to Tokyo for the Olympics.
Half as much as usual.
For the Paralympic Games, the figure will be much lower.
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