The Sad Story of the Tokyo Olympics

The Sad Story of the Tokyo Olympics

     Every four years, the world comes together and homes in on one city where they send their best athletes to get to the closest thing the world has to The Hunger Games. That event is called the Olympics which is organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), The IOC will come up a lot later so just remember that. Let's go back in time to the story and the origin of the Olympics.

The Origins of the Olympics

     The Olympics first began in 776 BCE but that Olympics is different from the modern games we know today. It involves a lot of explicit stuff which I will not get to right now. That old Olympics died out in around 300 BCE. So just throw that section of the Olympics down the trash. The real Olympics or the one we know today is the Olympic Games and that is where our story begin.

     The founder of the modern Olympics is a man named Pierre de Coubertin who had a passion for sportsmanship and sports itself. He wanted to bring back the tradition that was the Olympics and so in 1894, he founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and two years later, the first modern Olympics was held in Athens, Greece in 1894. The same city where the first original Olympics (the one from 776 BCE) was held. The IOC slowly began to improve and progressively created different type of games. The first Winter Olympic Games was held in Chamonix, France in 1924 while the Youth Olympic Games was first held in Singapore in 2010 while the Paralympic Games was first held in Rome, Italy in 1960. This and a lot more have helped the Olympics Committee greatly and for most of the modern games, the event plays out extremely smoothly except for the exceptions and controversies which I will call 'Exceptversies'

Exceptversies: Boycotts (1936-1988)

     Let's begin with the exceptions, for political and foreign affairs reasons, some games have been boycotted before. In total, there have been 7 boycotted games of which 2 were the more famous ones. The boycotted games include the Olympics Games of:

     1) Berlin, Nazi Germany (1936)

     2) Melbourne, Australia (1956)

     3) Tokyo, Japan (1964)

     4) Montreal, Canada (1976)

     5) Moscow, Soviet Union (1980)

     6) Los Angeles, United States (1984)

     7) Seoul, South Korea (1988)

     The Moscow and Los Angeles games are the more famous boycott mainly because it involved more countries. The boycott was mainly due to tensions from the Cold War in the 1980 and then 1984. I have never felt what a boycott feels like and don't think it's that big of a deal, it's like not showing up to a birthday party after accepting the invitation I guess. Anyway, let's move on.

Exceptversies: The Not So Good Olympics (1968)

     In 1968, two members of the United States Olympic Team, Tommie Smith and John Carlos had just won a Gold and Bronze medal respectively in the 200m race. On the podium, when the U.S. national anthem began playing, the two raise each of their hands wearing black gloves and faced down for the entirety of the anthem. The silver medalist, an Australian named Peter Norman suggested the two wore black gloves. All three of the winners, Smith, Carlos and Norman wore jackets with a white badge with the words "Olympic Project for Human Rights". A famous photo was taken of this scene now title "The Black Power Salute".

     After the Black Power Salute, IOC chair Avery Brundage asked for the Tommie Smith and John Carlos to be banned and head back to the United States. Peter Norman was heavily ostracized by the Australian Media and was under mass expulsion after the games. In the end, I feel that the trio had their chance to promote the project but they probably knew about the fact that after the Olympics, that would be the end of their sporting career. 

Exceptversies - Mostly 21st Century Problems (2000-Beyond)

          Over the years the Olympics have been very profitable and have produced a positive economic impact on the host city. However in recent years, Olympics Games both Winter and Summer have slowly been producing a negative impact and have increasingly gone over budget. In the past, hosting the Olympics could cost anywhere between $200-500 million, from Sapporo 1972 at $117 Million to as low as Innsbruck 1964 at $22 Million. But slowly, the budgeting cost of Olympics has been increasing slowly while the final cost of Olympics has exploded. Every Olympic Game since 2008 has gone over budget by 5 Billion USD. The most controversial game was the Sochi 2014 Olympics which had a budget of $10.3 Billion, had a final price tag of $51 Billion USD, making it the most expensive Olympic games. That is more than 3 times of Athens 2004, the Olympic game 20 years before Sochi. And there is also the fundamental problem of maintaining the Olympic venues. For example, around 4 out of 10 of the Olympic venues in Rio 2016 have been abandoned and in disrepair since the end of the games. But that's not to say that there have been no maintenance, the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park built for the London 2012 games has been a lively park for tourists and daily londoners. Thanks to the recent negative impact, fewer countries have bid to host the games as well. For the 2004 games, 11 countries bid to host it whereas the 2024 games, only two countries, Kazakhstan and China bid to host. That is the problem. I feel that if the IOC continues this spiral, the Olympics will eventually go out of business but that scenario is very unlikely which brings out to Tokyo 2020, I mean, 2021.

The Story of Tokyo 2020, Summarised

    Bidding Process - There were only three cities that bid for 2020. These were Istanbul (Turkey) along with Madrid (Spain) and lastly Tokyo (Japan). Both two cities were crushed by Tokyo, which won the bid on 7 September 2013. Tokyo immediately decided on a budget of $7.5 Billion USD and began getting to work.

    The Planning Phase - The plan for a new National Stadium was taken into consideration after Tokyo won the bid for the Olympics. In total, the government set aside a grand $1 Billion USD into upgrading the stadium. But when the new design came out, the price tag went up to $1.4 Billion instead. For most of the other venues, Tokyo chose to do some polishing on existing stadiums while in others, doing some more drastic renovations. Most venues was located strategically in the bay area and in the heritage area. It is also the first Olympics to pay more attentive to Climate Change and the Carbon Levels than other Olympics which I must commend. Overall, much of the venues and structures were taken into great consideration. 

    In 2016, the official Tokyo 2020 logo was brought in. It formed a ring in a checkerboard pattern colored indigo. This became important when deciding my favourite part about Olympics, the mascots. The two mascots (a male and female) were Miraitowa (the male), coloured indigo and Someity (the female), coloured pink. The Olympics was in a great shape except the budget though which just about doubled to around $15 Billion. This was when a slightly infectious challenger emerged...

The Story of Tokyo 2020: Controversy 1 - Coronavirus

    On the 24 of March, when the COVID-19 Pandemic worsened, the IOC announced that the games will be postponed by one year but will still be called the Tokyo 2020 Games. This was after pressure from certain countries such as the United Kingdom which said a few days prior that it will not compete unless the games were postponed. Tokyo and the IOC's hands were tied and had no choice. The new dates were selected with the Opening Ceremony on 23 July and Closing Ceremony on 8 August. Thanks to the coronavirus, experts estimate roughly $26 billion as the final cost for the Olympics.

The Story of Tokyo 2020: Controversy 2 - Yoshiro Mori

    Another controversy arose when Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who served as President of the Tokyo Organising Committee resigned on the 11 of February 2021 after pressure from the media and the population on female journalist. He was replaced by Seiko Hashimoto. To me I think it would have been great if he lasted until the games. But anyway let's move on.

The Future of the Olympics

    The Olympics has slowly become more and more dreadful for various people across our planet. Why? As I mentioned, the Olympics has been producing more negative benefits than positive. So far the Olympics has a plan, but a broad plan with little and no information given on how and why. That plan is the 'Olympic Agenda 20+20'. It listed 40 different ideas on what the committee should do for the future of this tradition. This includes big things like to Include Sustainability in all aspects of the games to slightly smaller things like Launching an Olympic Channel. But these are just recommendations and need further expansion. I will link the agenda down below. For now, let's go to Farren's Opinion Corner.

Farren's Opinion Corner

    Tokyo 2020 is sad. Every Olympic Games from planning to post-games takes roughly 10 years and billions of dollars. To postpone the games was definitely devastating to many individuals. And along with the other parts of the future of Olympics such as the budget and the negative impacts, I agree and I am thankful that this tradition is not dying, but something I believe needs to be done. So here is what I'd do in my opinion.

    Firstly, have the host city lay out a huge plan for the budget on how every dollar is spent. Then, limit the number of sports to a certain number. Thirdly, only spend money on touch ups and renovations. No building buildings from scratch. Afterwards, have the IOC pay for a capped amount of money from each games. (my recommendation is roughly 20-25%) Finally, have all travelling and accommodation to be paid by each country (which I think they already do). Last lastly, have the two ceremonies, opening and closing to be paid equally by every participating country. Then, the Olympics woud be great! By in the end, those are my ideas and please don't take it too seriously. Also, if you are Japanese, please comment below this blog. 

Happy Reading and International Women's Day!

Farren's Personal Corner: farrenpersonalcorner.blogspot.com

Other Information

- International Olympic Committee (IOC): https://www.olympic.org/the-ioc

- First Recorded Olympic Games (776 BCE): https://tinyurl.com/Olympicsames  

- IOC Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee

- List of All Olympic Games (Wikipedia): https://tinyurl.com/HostCity001

- List of Olympic Boycotts (Wikipedia): https://tinyurl.com/Boycoott

- Information on Black Power Salute (1968): https://tinyurl.com/BPS-1968

- Tokyo 2020 (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Summer_Olympics

- Yoshiro Mori (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshir%C5%8D_Mori

- IOC 20+20 Agenda: https://tinyurl.com/Agenda20020