A Magic Bullet At Any Cost

Have a listen to this, ye mortals who despaired at the pandemic-­hit Tokyo 2020: a race through the origin and progress of the Olympics shows that even after 2,800 years, mankind has not been able to overcome the primordial challenges of infectious diseases and internal strife. The first Olympics on record in 776 BC had its root in overcoming wars and epidemics. Legend has it that Iphitos, king of Ellis, was eager to break the chain of armed conflicts that ravaged Greece in the eighth century BC. Iphitos consulted the Oracle of Delphi—that ubiquitous soothsayer of classical antiquity—who advised him to create a peaceful sporting competition.

Humankind is at a crucial juncture today and, if political conflicts and ­climate change were not enough, it is gasping at the gauntlet thrown by a deadly virus. Never before since the ­inception of modern Olympics in 1896 have the Games been cancelled due to a pandemic. Five Olympic Games didn’t happen—the summer games of 1916, 1940 and 1944, and the winter games of 1940 and 1944—because of the two world wars.

Interestingly, an Olympics in Japan has always come on the back of a natural calamity or a man-made disaster. Japan’s resilience in recovering from the ravages of WWII has been well documented. But the 1940 Tokyo Games, which never happened due to the second Sino-Japanese War and the global war, would have been an occasion to show how Japan had recovered from the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that struck the main island of Honshu. The 7.9 magnitude earthquake killed 60,000 and gra­vely injured 100,000 people and caused economic losses close to $1.2 trillion.

Tokyo was the first Asian venue for an Olympics in 1964. The Japanese were eager to show the world how they had recovered after being bludgeoned by war. Its crown jewel was the Shinkan­sen—the Bullet train, a network of high-speed railway lines. The Tokaido Shinkansen was launched in October 1964, in time for the Games. When the conventional express service took six hours 40 minutes to cover the 500-plus kilometres from Tokyo to Osaka, the bullet train took just four hours. (Now it takes less than three hours.) The Shinkansen enabled day trips between two of the largest metropolises of Japan—the world’s busiest high-speed line. The developed world went ­goggle-eyed in 1964.

“One of the larger objectives to host Tokyo 2020 was nationalism,” says Sandeep Goyal, author of two books on Japan. “Japan’s desperation to host the Games against all odds is understandable. Like 1964, they want to tell the world that they are still a superpower in terms of technological advancement.” Goyal, who has extensively worked with the Japanese, says the world’s business ­dynamics have undergone a sea change in the past 20 years. “In 2000, there were nine Japanese companies, like Panasonic and Sony, among the world’s top 20 corporate behemoths. In 2020, only Toyota remains. The Silicon Valley has smashed all opposition, and Japan clearly wants its space back in the top 20,” says Goyal.

The clamber for a place back in the sun has come at a price. When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Tokyo in 2013, the cost of staging it was pegged at $7.5 ­billion. Audits by Japanese companies show higher costs than actually stated. It’s now estimated at a minimum $25 billion, making it the most expensive summer Olympics.

“The Tokyo Olympics are operating in a very tough environment,” Toshiro Muto, CEO of the organising committee, has been quoted as saying. He suggests the Games should be looked at as an ­investment rather than a cost.

If the direct costs of staging the Games is around $25 billion, the Japanese ­government could be spending close to $20 billion, since the revenue from sponsors, all put together, is about $3.6 billion. Money of this magnitude has never been spent on any Games before. London 2012 was supposedly the most expensive Games at $14.8 billion.

A measure of the nationalism involved with Tokyo’s hosting the Games from July 23 can be gauged from the fact that there are a record 66 sponsors in three different categories involved with the Games. Even Beijing 2008 could not muster so many local sponsors despite having the entire Chinese government machinery working behind the scenes.

Even if the path for the Olympics has been cleared and Japan has ended its state of Covid emergency, the Japanese medical community has been largely against the Games. According to recent reports, only 5 per cent of Japanese are fully vaccinated and medical journal The Lancet has raised questions about the health risks of a summer Olympics. Lancet has criticised the World Health Organization and others for not taking a clear stand, while the New England Journal of Medicine has said the IOC’s decision to proceed “is not informed by the best scientific evidence”.

Critics say Japan has put self-interest before everything else and since the IOC has nothing to lose—all its agreements with sponsors are long, 20-year deals with a provision to stretch them in case the Games don’t happen—compromises have been made.

Brand and strategy specialist Harish Bijoor says prioritisation has been ­sacrificed. “I have seen this with sporting bodies that they somehow want to swim against the tide of human reality,” he says. “Reality is the kind of firestorm nations have gone through—the deaths and illnesses that have touched everyone. And if a sporting body shows greed even in this condition, that would be wrong. I have seen this across sports—IPL, for ­instance. There is a firm ­dividing line between greed and human condition, and I think the latter must ­always rule over greed.”

Bijoor adds in utter indignation: “I do notice there is desperation in the Tokyo Olympics organising committee and the IOC to say that we must have the Games at any cost. They must understand that it is not where they live that comprises the world. There are 193 other countries where the world really lives. And out of these if there are 180 countries in deep danger…it is not the time to celebrate. Olympics are the ­ultimate celebration of sport. But today we don’t live in a celebratory economy, we live in a pain economy. Olympics ­during a pain economy is absurd….”

According to a survey last week, about three in five Japanese feel Tokyo 2020 should go ahead this year. With pressure on the medical system easing and with the daily average of vaccinations now ­exceeding one million, public sentiment is changing for sure. The Japanese ­government had dubbed Tokyo 2020 as the “Reconstruction Olympics,” referring to the country’s bounce-back from the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Japan’s determination to ride Tokyo 2020 and reclaim the perception of its being economically the Land of the Rising Sun looks as resolute as ever.