Will Tokyo Olympics celebrate?

In March 2020, the International Olympic Committee (IIC) confirmed in a statement that Tokyo Olympic Games were postponed “until the summer of 2021, at the latest” because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Seeing how is evolving the pandemic in autumn, with high numbers across Europe, the United States and Latin America, is it wise to celebrate them?

Let’s consider 3 possible scenarios for its celebration:

  1. Public presence and quarantine elimination

Tokyo 2020 organizers are considering to ban fans from shouting or speaking out during Olympic competitions. This measure added to the limitation of capacity in the stadium would prevent from covid infections. But is this enough? Would it be required a PCR test before entering  the country? Just a quick reminder, in Rio 2016 there were 17,000 athletes, 25,000 accredited journalists and more than 500,000 foreigners.

2. 50% capacity and virtual events

The Olympic Committee wants to ensure the face-to-face meeting day with the Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and a press conference with the chairman of the Games organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, another former prime minister. Once this face-to-face meeting finished the rest of meetings would be virtual and others with restricted access to journalists.

3. The first Olympic Games without foreign audience

Ultimately, and if the pandemic figures have not improved globally, the games could be held without foreigners. The difficulty of forcing all those traveling to Japan to make a quarantine for 14 days -currently required by the Japanese authorities- and the need of getting a PCR test plus the rules about “not to shout or speak aloud” could finally make the committee decide to celebrate the games with only presence from local people already in Japan.

$12 billion have already been invested, hundreds of signed contracts are at risk, and the economic cost to the country of not being celebrating them could mean a 1.4% reduction in GDP.

The world’s largest sport event, is today at risk because of the unexpected coronavirus crisis and its uncontrolled expansion. We’ll have to see if the Pfizer vaccine will arrive in time to save the long-awaited Tokyo Olympics 2021.