Following the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, which concludes Tokyo 2020, iSportConnect pays tribute to the athletes and looks at the legacies and impact of the Games on a world in crisis. By Olympic Games advisor Michael Pirrie.
Tokyo’s Unstoppable Games – The Critical Success Factors Behind The Games Of The Century To 2028
Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie looks at the unprecedented challenges of the Tokyo Olympic Games and the solutions that organisers relied on to deliver the world’s biggest event that many thought impossible in a global pandemic.
After a prolonged hiatus, the IOC and Japanese Government decided the show must go on, and indeed it did. Despite pre-show jitters, Tokyo 2020 was the biggest and most successful gathering of nations and territories since the pandemic shut the planet down.
Tokyo 2020 avoided the doomsday scripts and scenarios and brought jolts of joy to the world. Orphaned and unwanted in a host nation fearful and unsure, Tokyo’s Games had a positive impact on the world.
This was the biggest display of human achievement since Covid weakened the planet but not the spirit of sport and the world’s best athletes.
Sport competed with the pandemic for the world’s attention during the Tokyo Games as Olympic news went viral, newspapers printed special editions and television constantly replayed Olympic highlights.
The Games generated global admiration and applause for the athletes and gratitude also for the host nation. Pride too, humble and hidden, in homes and hearts across Japan on high alert before the Games.
COUNTERING COVID
Tokyo’s success required extraordinary planning which might have seemed at times more like an article of faith. The rapid global spread of highly infectious Covid variants at the start of the year meant that Tokyo 2020 would never be a zero risk environment.
The implementation of proven, cautious personal and public health measures kept infection numbers to a minimum amongst Games participants. Biosecurity bubbles were safer for athletes than conditions in their home countries, despite the virus surging in and around greater Tokyo.
The Games is now being analysed by governments, public health experts, epidemiologists, and city planners to gain a better understanding of possible strategies for living with Covid on and off the sporting field.
While most attention has focussed on the performances and welfare of front line athletes competing under a state of emergency, Olympic organisers and teams played pivotal roles behind the scenes.
TOKYO HAD IT ALL
Tokyo was an unparalleled global planning operation involving 205 Olympic nations and territories engulfed by the pandemic.
It had it all – everything and everyone from gold medal twins, a knitting diver, pre-teen table tennis prodigy, triplets, transgender athletes, a high jumping diarist, lost bear, marriage proposals, airport asylum and dramatic defections, medallists and athletes who had recovered from cancer, brain trauma, spinal impairment, mental illness, bullying, eating disorders and, of course, Covid.
Tokyo had athletes who have now lost their home nation to Taliban invaders, and an equestrian who shares a surname with one of the world’s biggest rock stars, prompting a global conversation about which song might accompany Jessica Springsteen on her show jumping routines. Contenders included, Born to Jump, The Rising, or She’s The One. These were stories the world was longing for.
The high standard of organisation was evident from the start, it was an opening ceremony that acknowledged a world in grief with respect and restraint, avoiding contrived Wow moments conjured from the Disney playbook.
There was authenticity too, recognising the vital role of sport in the making of modern Japan.
This was evident when legendary Japanese baseball icon Sadaharu Oh – who holds the world lifetime home run record – stepped forward from the shadows lifting the Olympic torch as a beacon of hope in the final stages of an epic relay many thought might never reach the cauldron.
He also lifted the spirit and mood of Japan. I vividly recall Oh once telling an audience in Tokyo that baseball helped to rebuild Japan after the Second World War.
The quality of planning for the Games continued through to the closing ceremony, which transformed the stadium into a playground depicting scenes of daily life in Japan.
But this was no walk in the park. Tokyo 2020 was more like climbing Mount Everest than Mount Fuji. Bringing the world to the Games was an unparalleled international transport operation.
This involved coordinated arrivals and departures of thousands of athletes from across the globe with immoveable competition schedules and deadlines and many boarders and light paths closed and airline carriers grounded.
The Fijian men’s rugby team hitched a ride on a seafood cargo plane to successfully defend the nation’s first gold medal from Rio.
OLYMPIC SPORT’S MOON LANDING
The organisers delivered a Games environment that reflected the enormous diversity, drama, and uncertainty of sport and life on a fragile planet
Countering Covid was like landing sport on the moon. The competition programme was unprecedented. Sports filled Tokyo’s land, sea and air space.
Surfing and sailing at sea, rowing in Tokyo Bay, swimming in pools, running on tracks, sand and in the streets, and gravity defying gymnasts, high jumpers, high flying bike riders, horse riders, skate boarders, and cliff climbers hanging in mid air captivated everyone.
Keeping the record-breaking sports show largely on schedule required extraordinary coordination and implementation of planning for 10,000 athletes, teams and officials and 340 events across dozens of competition venues.
NO MARGIN FOR ERROR
This was equivalent to staging 33 world championships almost simultaneously or approximately five FA Cup or NFL Super Bowl finals every day for 16 consecutive days.
Everthing depended on Tokyo’s capacity to test, trace and isolate Covid amongst thousands of competitors and participants, and to address every operational and covid related issue instantly in venues and faciities across the city and country.
There was almost no margin for error over 16 long days and nights of competition and pre Games arrival and departure operations.
With the entire world watching, fearful of a peak outbreak, Japan and the IOC’s international brand and reputation was at stake every hour of every day of the Games.
SPORT’S MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
Tokyo’s great organisational achievement was to evolve a new Games model that enabled sporting magic to happen safely inside largely vacant venues in a mega metropolis engulfed by a modern day plague. Not easy.
This was sport’s mission impossible, accomplished by a forensic focus on the athletes. The athletes’ stories and performances transformed the Games narrative from imperilled and improbable to inspirational.
GAMES WITH HEART
Athletes performed at awe-inspiring levels with a plethora of Olympic, world, continental and national records, and almost always with humility, grace, courage and goodwill whatever their fate or outcome.
They reminded the world again of why it fell in love with the Olympics.
Polish athlete Maria Andrejczyk swapped her javelin for cupid’s arrow and touched the world with her gesture from the heart to raise money for an infant to undergo cardiac surgery.
“This silver (medal) can save lives instead of collecting dust in a closet,” she said, proving that even losing a gold medal can have many silver linings.
TOKYO’S CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
Planning the necessary conditions for sporting magic to happen inside the venues drove preparations before and after onset of the pandemic.
Focussing on the athletes also meant addressing all safety, security, health and other issues impacting on planning for the Games.
“All of the plans to protect safety and security of athletes are based around worst possible circumstances,” said IOC vice president John Coates, in the countdown to the Games.
FAST TRACK, FAST POOL, FAST GAMES
The following factors were paramount to the success in Tokyo:
- Implementation and enforcement of proven Covid counter measures on a scale never attempted before at a global event. High levels of vaccination.
- The construction and operation of high performing venues that enabled athletes to perform at their best.
- Venues were designed and operated with infrastructure, materials, surfaces, spaces and staff to enable competitors perform at their best.
- A fast pool and fast track produced attention grabbing medal moments in swimming and athletics that spanned the Games and the world.
- Successful test events that trialled key biosecurity measures and venue infrastructure, technology, and operation.
- Japan’s home team success, which quelled public opposition and shifted support behind the Games.
Sports presentation and innovative event broadcast packages brought Olympic athletes and competition closer than ever to global viewing audiences.
The relationship between Tokyo organisers and leaders of the International Olympic Committee and Olympic community was fundamental to Tokyo’s success. The Japanese Government’s relationship with IOC President Thomas Bach in particular was vital, especially in maintaining funding and whole of government support.
This helped to maintain belief amongst athletes, NOCs and federations that the Games was still possible even as the pandemic surged and opposition increased.
The IOC’s oversight body, the Co-ordination Commission, was pivotal. Particularly the role of IOC Vice President and commission chair John Coates and commission members, including World Athletics President Seb Coe, was crucial to anchoring the athlete centred culture into planning for the Games.
As executive adviser on the London 2012 Olympic Committee, I remember Coe’s constant mantra, as our chairman, that we could never allow any shortcomings in our planning to diminish the experience or performance of the athletes.
Coates had earlier developed the ‘athlete first’ model for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and instilled this into Tokyo’s planning prior to the pandemic.
IOC Executive Director Christophe Dubi played a key coordination role across a number of vital areas, including the Games Playbooks around which the which formed the plan for the Games.
TOKYO 2.0
Rebuilding the Games around the athletes following the outbreak of the pandemic would take planning to the extremes. After nearly seven years of painstaking planning, a rebuild of the Games was needed almost overnight.
Tokyo’s venue operating plans, the foundations for the Games, needed to be redesigned in record time to counter a fatal virus that did not require an accreditation or security pass to enter the Games.
All Village, hotel and venue services and operations important for athletes, officials and national teams, had to be carefully redesigned, integrated and tested by Tokyo organisers and teams.
These included security, training, transport, technology, accommodation, catering and airport arrivals and departures
OPERATING THE GAMES
The Games time operating plan focussed on keeping infections to a minimum to keep the all important sports competition and broadcasting schedules on track, essential for Games revenues and IOC sports funding programs. Tokyo’s masking, testing, tracing and isolation mandates minimised infections, reduced exposure sites and kept venues open.
The dawn of the highly infectious delta variant at the start of the year was the single most important development that shaped final planning decisions for the Games.
Understanding how delta could infect and spread through movement inside, around and between Olympic facilities, venues, and Village was fundamental to protecting athletes and Tokyo residents.
New scientific understandings about the high reproductive rate and capacity of delta to infect through minimal contact were integrated into Games plans
VACCINATING THE GAMES
Due to a high number of infections amongst spectators and visitors travelling and attending the Euros along with low vaccination rates and surging virus in Japan meant domestic residents could not go to the games.
The games has an almost infinite array of moving parts and many of these had to be scaled back to reduce numbers and movements of participants inside Games bubble and entering the bubble to stop movement of the virus. Athletes also vaccinated themselves and the Games against the virus.
While vaccination was not a prerequisite for competition, efforts by IOC, Tokyo organisers, NOCs, IFs and governments resulted in up to 80 per cent of athletes, media and other groups achieving vaccination for the Games.
This proved a major defence against the virus and played a key role in combination with other counter measures in limiting spread and transmission through casual contacts in Games bubbles.
Never has a sporting event been so relevant to its times like Tokyo, pointing to the increasingly complex geopolitical realities of sport inside and outside the bubble.
While US President Joe Biden has described sport as the most unifying activity on the planet, Chinese athletes wore Mao pins in Tokyo, inspired by leader Xi who has referred to sport as ” the epitome of a country’s strength and civilisation.”
Meanwhile, a baby abandoned 20 years ago under China’s former one child policy won the first gold medal of the Games for her adopted home nation of Canada, beating a Chinese swimmer to the touch pad.
CONCLUSION
Sport cannot solve the world’s problems but it can help to highlight what is important in communities and cities.
The Olympic athletes in Tokyo made the world feel more positive and confident about finding possible solutions to personal problems and problems afflicting the wider world. Athletes gave short counselling sessions in the mixed zone.
“I think people maybe feel bad for me that I’m not winning everything, said US swimming icon Katie Ledecky, “but I want people to be concerned about other things that are going on in the world, people that are truly suffering.”
One of the world’s most acclaimed athletes, multiple Olympic gold medal US gymnast, Simone Biles, who came back to win a bronze medal after withdrawing from competition following mental health concerns said “Let it go and move on.”
Tokyo 2020 Emphasises The Power Of The Olympic Games, Even In A Crisis
With the curtains coming down on Tokyo 2020, Olympic Games adviser and analyst Michael Pirrie wraps up the successful and unstoppable Games.
Tokyo 2020 Excelling Against All Odds
Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie looks at key developments in the Tokyo Games as the worlds biggest sporting event passes the half way mark despite the Covid pandemic.
Tokyo Takes Off
With Tokyo 2020 now well underway, Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie believes the evidence is there to suggest that the Tokyo Games are succeeding against expectations.
The Olympic journey to Tokyo was hesitantly delayed amid fears the air in Japan would not support elite sporting activity on the scale of the Olympic Games.
Athletes thought they might have detoured to the wrong destination, arriving to empty venues and a winners’ podium where they presented their own medals.
“The air of trepidation upon landing in Tokyo has started to lift and the ‘doomsday scenarios’ that surrounded the Tokyo Games also have started to shift.”
While there have been many ‘Houston: we have a problem’ moments along the way, the air of trepidation upon landing in Tokyo has started to lift and the ‘doomsday scenarios’ that surrounded the Tokyo Games also have started to shift.
A more festive mood has settled over Tokyo and the Games where fear has been a constant and threatening presence.
SPORTS TAKE OFF
Virus particles still linger in the Tokyo air but there is an air of excitement growing too. While the virus remains, the atmosphere started changing as teams adjusted to local conditions and competition called.
The Tokyo Games launched with the Opening Ceremony last Friday and started to soar in recent days as Japanese athletes raced to the top tier of the medals table.
Sports competitions covered Tokyo – on land, on sand, at sea, in the air, with gravity defying gymnasts, in pools and in concrete skateboarding parks.
TOKYO’S TV GAMES
With spectators banned from venues Tokyo has become a giant broadcast centre with the world’s best athletes performing for socially and geographically distant audiences in locations around the world.
A clearer picture also is coming into sharper focus of Tokyo’s TV Games beyond the protests, polls and petitions that have largely defined preparations.
The orphaned Games that seemed too dangerous to touch have now been embraced in lounge rooms around the world. Families are having Olympics parties and young children are hosting their own “backyard Olympics.”
The Japanese Olympic team’s almost immediate medal success has boosted interest and excitement in neighbourhoods, homes and in conversations in the mega metropolis and prefectures across the nation.
The arrival of Olympic competition sparked a very public and patriotic show of support for the Games in Tokyo and beyond.
Thousands of residents resisted state of emergency stay-at-home requests to get a glimpse of riders in the men’s cycling road race.
TV ratings have indicated that nearly 70 million Japanese viewers, nearly half of the population, had so far tuned into some Games coverage.
The weekend momentum continued into the first full week of competition, showcasing performances of skill and resilience rarely seen in national domestic codes, continental or world sporting championships.
While COVID-19 has stripped back many of the marquee programs of the traditional Olympic Games model, like the Torch Relay and ceremonies, the unique Games mythology has survived the pandemic
Even while Covid cases continued to rise, with more than 205 Olympic nations and territories participating, the Tokyo Games has become a global statement that the world of sport will not be defined by the pandemic.
The athletes have vaccinated the Olympic ideals against the virus, and their achievements, with the whole world watching, have revealed much about the human condition and that of the world.
THE STORIES OF THE GAMES
The success of athletes, often in great adversity, can push people, communities and movements forward towards hope and possible solutions.
Australian surfer, Owen Wright, the comeback king of the Games so far, won bronze in surfing’s debut as an Olympic sport after teaching himself to walk again following a brain injury.
Tokyo has shown the chance to represent a home nation at the Games can mean almost everything to some athletes, even in a pandemic devastated world.
One Timor-Leste athlete, for example, who could not practice in a swimming pool during local and regional COVID lockdowns, trained in a stretch of sea known to be inhabited with salt-water crocodiles.
The Olympic legend is based around the stories of the athletes.These stories are also starting to transform the narrative of the Tokyo Games from imperilled to inspirational.
The efforts made by some teams to get to Tokyo has underlined the importance of the Games to many nations even in a world still struggling with a global health emergency.
These include Fiji’s reigning men’s Olympic rugby team, which travelled in cramped cargo class aboard an aircraft normally used to transport frozen seafood after international passenger flights were grounded due to Covid.
For the small East African island state of Comoros, where about half the population lived below the international poverty line of $US 1.25 a day, just to be with the rest of the world in the Athletes’ Parade in Tokyo was enough in uncertain Covid times.
Team GB’s Tom Daley, winning Olympic gold in synchronised at his third attempt was also a powerful Olympic story in Tokyo. This was a long awaited golden goal for Daley after competing at the Olympics initially as a 14-year old at Beijing 2008.
Daley’s story also is one of triumph over adversity as well as social change and enormous personal perseverance, skill and self-belief. “I am incredibly proud to say I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion,” he said after winning the event.
“When I was young I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was.”
“When I was young I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was. To be an Olympic champion now just shows you can achieve anything.”
Sometimes rivalries between and within national Olympic teams and athletes can drive performances to new heights at the Games.
These have included the epic middle distance running classics between athletics legends Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, culminating at the 1980 Moscow Games.
This time the rivalry has been transferred from the track to the swimming pool in Tokyo where Great Britain swimmer Tom Dean, who had to defeat Covid twice just to get to Tokyo, before defeating his Scottish team-mate Duncan Scott in the pool to win gold – the first time British swimmers have finished first and second in the same swimming event in more than a century.
The contest between US swimming legend Katie Ledecky and her younger Australian rival, Ariarne Titmus, known as the “Terminator,” looms as one the great battles of Tokyo, in or out of the pool.
RIVALRY OF THE GAMES
It is also shaping up as one of the truly great contests in recent Olympic Games history after Titmus took the first of their multiple races against each other, the 400m individual freestyle.
While Ledecky was thought to be unbeatable, Titmus applauded her opponent. “I wouldn’t be here without her,” Titmus said. “If I didn’t have someone like her to chase, I definitely wouldn’t be swimming the way I am.”
Sometimes rivalry is not the key to winning.
Australian 100m backstroker, Kaylee McKeown, dedicated her gold medal to her father who died of brain cancer less than year ago, believing she could feel her late father’s presence as she walked on to the pool deck before the race and in the final stages of the race.
“To dad, I hope you are proud and I keep doing you proud,” McKeown said after one of the emotional moments of the Games.
The Games has brought a constellation of the best athletes on the planet to Tokyo in search of an Olympic medal, still the ultimate mark of recognition and achievement in world sport.
These include tennis superstar Novak Djokovic who had indicated that he might not attend if spectators were banned.
An Olympic medal can be the most elusive quest in world sport, even for world champions like the Tokyo cauldron lighter Naomi Osaka, who has crashed out of the Games.
The Olympic competition cauldron can even challenge the greatest athletes of all time as well as the best in the world. Even today, US gymnast Simone Biles who has suddenly withdrawn from the US team gymnastics final in a shock for her nation and the Games.
Biles, who is also one of the most talented, admired and respected athletes, has qualified for the all round and apparatus finals later in the week.
“Organisers are working around the clock to contain the virus within biosecurity barriers installed to prevent crossover into Games facilities or wider community.”
While soaring temperatures and typhoon-like winds could still cause major disruption, Games organisers and Olympic teams are taking comfort that the super sporting event has not developed a super spreading Covid event.
The Games’ biosecurity bubbles seem to be holding with athletes tested frequently and isolated immediately if positive or on showing symptoms.
Organisers are working around the clock to contain the virus within biosecurity barriers installed to prevent crossover into Games facilities or wider community.
This has been an Olympian task with a degree of difficulty and danger much greater than any Olympic or extreme sport.
Tokyo’s New Spectator Plan Leads Headlines As Games Hits One Month To Go
Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie outlines how Tokyo’s spectator blueprint will define the Games as organisers mark the start of the final countdown to the Tokyo 2020.
The long awaited decision on crowd numbers reveals the final big policy piece that has been missing in Tokyo’s preparations.
This decision will help to define the Tokyo Games in terms of safety outcomes and direction of future Olympic Games in the Covid era of major international sport.
The 10,000 limit on domestic fans has been the headline number but there are no guarantees. Like tickets for the Games, the policy decision comes with terms and conditions attached.
With Japan’s senior medical figures advocating for Games behind closed doors, Prime Minister Suga’s government has indicated the event could still take place without spectators if the virus situation worsens.
The prospect of ghost Games in Tokyo heralds a new stage in the delivery and history of the world’s biggest and most important sporting event and is a defining point with the past.
Full venues have been at the centre of some of Olympic sport’s most iconic moments.
These include the drama surrounding British athlete Derek Redmond, whose father emerged from the stands of the Barcelona Olympic stadium to help his injured son complete a semi-final in the 400 metres at Barcelona 92.
The sight of the athlete’s father stumbling with his stricken son to the finish line prompted an unprecedented standing ovation from the 65,000 spectators watching on.
While spectators have long been an essential Games feature, the dramatic drop in spectator numbers for Tokyo was just as essential to combat a virus that doesn’t need a ticket or day pass to enter venues.
Tokyo’s spectator policy will be fundamental to the success of the Games.
“Olympic broadcast partner NBC alone will present an unparalleled 7,000 hours of Games coverage utilising two broadcast networks, six cable networks and multiple digital platforms.”
The ceiling on numbers comes at a critical time as authorities attempt to restrict the spread of highly transmissible corona variants in Tokyo and other Olympic locations.
Containing corona will be the single biggest focus in the final countdown to the Games as preparations move rapidly into overdrive. This includes the growing number of foreign teams beginning to arrive and venues are activated.
THE NUMBERS GAMES
Fewer spectators will reduce the need for pre-Games venue infrastructure, preparations and staffing, and reduce potential spread of the virus.
The cap on spectator numbers, importantly, will reduce cleaning, catering, transport and other requirements during the Games.
This – along with dramatic cuts to Olympic stakeholder and participant group numbers – will reduce the scale of the Games and flurry of movement and activity in and around Olympic venues and communities, and in turn cut the movement of the virus and potential exposure sites during the Games.
SCREENING THE GAMES
While the Olympic Games has long been a made for television event, a possible shut out of local fans could make Tokyo the first Olympic Games for television only.
This would draw the biggest global television audiences since the Apollo moon landing.
“Irrespective of whether we have spectators or not we’re going to see one thing; its that the outside world will come into the stadiums, although digitally,” IOC executive director, Christophe Dubi, said earlier this year.
Olympic broadcast partner NBC alone will present an unparalleled 7,000 hours of Games coverage utilising two broadcast networks, six cable networks and multiple digital platforms.
This is claimed to be the biggest media event ever.
A spectator lock out would turn venues into no go zones to protect athletes, essential staff and host locations, and slash ticketing and merchandise revenues.
It would, however, help to keep the vital sports competition schedules on track for the commercially important broadcast and rights holding media, partners and top tier partners.
EUROS WARM UP
Hopes were high that the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games, along with the Euros currently in play, might transcend the toll of Covid illness, isolation and suffering that has overwhelmed the planet.
With 24 national teams and 51 games scheduled across 11 host countries over 30 long days during the pandemic, these Euros have been a compelling warm up for the Olympic Games.
“Comparisons with the sell out crowds from former Games will be inevitable but not helpful.”
The Euros, the second biggest sporting event of this turbulent year, have reflected some of the hopes, challenges and possibilities ahead for the Tokyo Games.
LAZARUS-LIKE SPORT
The tournament has highlighted the power of sport even in pandemic times.
This includes the heart stopping moment of Christian Eriksen’s collapse and miraculous return from a seemingly hopeless situation.
The footballer’s Lazarus-like comeback lifted the Covid cloud of despair and was rejoiced universally in nations far beyond continental Europe.
As the Swiss writer Erik Niva noted of Eriksen’s remarkable recovery, “Denmark lost but life won.”
Ronaldo’s removal of Coke bottles from his press conference table has not removed the fizz, sparkle and fantasy of football from the tournament.
The campaign by Italy – swamped by a tidal wave of death and disease at the outset of the pandemic – has brought optimism and belief to the nation. And for others too in search of hope in the future.
While spectators may are only play cameo roles as venue props in Tokyo, comparisons with the sell out crowds from former Games will be inevitable but not helpful.
We have entered a new era in sporting and world history, and as the writer LP Hartley once observed: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
With or without spectators, the Tokyo Games will have athletes, hope, suspense, fear, dreams, despair, redemption and healing, and the diversity of emotions experienced globally in Covid.
Tokyo Sets The Olympic Stage As Games Starts To Emerge From Pandemic’s Dark Shadows
Michael Pirrie looks at how Tokyo’s preparations for hosting this summer’s Olympic Games are ramping up as the event looks all set to go ahead.
When working with organising committees for previous Olympic Games, I recall vividly the arrival of the first athletes and teams as the moment that the Games suddenly becomes real.
These first arrivals after a decade or more of planning were a defining moment of quiet celebration. The Games at last had arrived with the athletes.
“I recall vividly the arrival of the first athletes and teams as the moment that the Games suddenly becomes real.”
Those teams have now started to arrive in Japan with the Australian softball team first in the world to touch down last week, with more Olympic teams also Japan bound, led by Covid compliance and information officers.
FROM DOUBT TO DELIVERY
Despite the enormous uncertainties, Tokyo is getting Games ready even as speculation continues about a possible last minute cancellation. Olympic organisers have moved into the mission critical final countdown phase of operational planning in a global pandemic.
Tokyo is moving from doubt to delivery. After much conjecture and controversy, the rapidly approaching Games is coming into clearer view.
There have been many turning points along the way. Even with infections still spreading, Tokyo’s recent pre-Games test events program was its most decisive moment.
Like many critical junctures, the significance of these trial events has been underestimated outside most Olympic circles; obscured by global speculation about Japan’s virus surge, protests, and state of emergency extensions.
TURNING THE GAMES
The trials demonstrated the safe operation of key biosecurity infection control procedures in principle and in practice.
The success of the test events program meant almost everything for Tokyo’s Games, with many Olympic athletes around the world completing Games qualification; preparing to pack uniforms and confirm flights; and broadcast schedules under constant review.
The tests indicated essential sporting infrastructure and services for the Games could operate in Covid safe ways for athletes and other participating groups.
“The significance of these trial events has been underestimated outside most Olympic circles; obscured by global speculation about Japan’s virus surge.”
This was an important response to prolonged speculation preoccupying Japan and the international community about the future of the Games. Countermeasures used globally to combat high-risk transmission routes most relevant to Games safety and venues were successfully tested.
These included especially the all pervasive threat from airborne transmission, which previously prompted French President Macron – who will represent his nation at the Tokyo Games – to request passengers to refrain from speaking while travelling on the France metro.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
The sounds of silence also filled Tokyo’s test venues, with no cheering or chanting to prevent possible infection from invisible virus particles in the air.
That silence will be golden for Olympic teams and athletes required to comply with strict safety protocols on arrival in Japan.
These will involve “Things like not speaking, so for example not at meal times…”, according to Clare Warwick, a member of the Australian Olympic softball team.
The Olympian was speaking shortly after arriving a week ago to prepare for the Games.
The arrival of the team from Australia, a leading Olympic nation, was also a milestone for Tokyo, sending a message of confidence in Games preparations and safety to the international community.
Prior test events, which included some international athletes, also trialled travel, transport and accommodation bubbles and helped to pave the way for pre Games arrivals and preparations.
GAMES IN A LABORATORY
With public support plunging in recent months due to rising Covid cases, the test events may be the most important program in Tokyo’s marathon 10-year journey to the Olympic Games.
The tests were conducted in laboratory-like conditions in highly sanitised bubbles and hubs: minimal numbers and movement of athletes and officials; no direct public contact; and no spectators to eliminate possible risk of infection in venues and other settings.
Although smaller than previous test events programs I have worked on in London and Sydney, Tokyo tested a diverse range of Olympic settings, sports and disciplines. These included volleyball, gymnastics, diving, track and field half marathon, sprinting, and skateboarding, on debut.
The test events will not immediately quell questions over the future of the Games.
But the trials will help to maintain belief that the safety of the Games is still possible and achievable amongst Olympic stakeholders and Japan’s most important allies, including US President Joe Biden.
White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, late last month confirmed that the United States supported the Tokyo Games proceeding with a very strict set of safety protocols. Another turning ppint.
The most asked question in world sport was answered emphatically at a recent IOC media conference which declared Games preparations were ‘moving fully ahead.’
CROSSING THE RUBICON
IOC vice president John Coates and Tokyo Olympic president Seiko Hashimoto both attempted to reinforce confidence in the Games even more recently and emphatically reconfirmed that organisers are fully focussed on the Games.
The test events had much to do with that confidence and belief that the Games could go ahead, even in a state of emergency. If so, Tokyo has crossed the Rubicon to the Olympic Games over the test events bridge.
While the ultimate test will come next month, the trials were a survival test for Tokyo. An outbreak of test event infections would have been an almost critical setback.
“We have successfully seen five sports hold test events during a state of emergency,” Coates emphasised after a recent Games progress review meeting.
TESTING FOR HOPE
The tests offer more than hope for Games organisers against a virus that kills hope. No Covid infections were reported among competitors or in neighbourhoods surrounding test venues.
IOC president Thomas Bach has often said that it was a matter of how not if the Gams would go ahead. The test events provide the How.
The tests showed that complex venue arrangements, live field of play and broadcast sports presentation, scoring, timing and results systems essential for the Games could operate in Covid safe settings.
Athletes importantly reported feeling safe in test bubbles and hubs. Another turning point vital in the current global environment of fear and uncertainty, with the virus still spreading in many Olympic nations and host Japan.
While life and sport are starting to slowly recover in some parts of the vaccinated world, India’s Covid catastrophe loomed Nostradamus-like.
UNCHARTERED TERRITORY
The trials provided the first preview of preliminary Covid countermeasures in action before the world’s single biggest peace time event opens next month in one of the world’s biggest cities in a global pandemic.
Still regarded as mission impossible for many, the Tokyo Olympic Games mission will take Japan, Olympic nations worldwide and the international community into terra incognita.
Acknowledging the anxiety, the widely respected former British Olympic gold medallist and current World Athletics president Seb Coe, sought to reassure Japan through the test events.
“We take very seriously the health and well being of local communities,” Coe said. “We have Covid protocols that have been tried and tested, and I’ve witnessed them here (in Japan).”
SPECTATOR SPORT
Test event hubs and bubble operations will need to be dramatically expanded and reinforced in the weeks ahead to cope with high Games time numbers, which pose the greatest risk.
These numbers could include Japanese spectators as fans start to return to major international events. The presence of spectators is the most critical decision remaining for organisers and will define the look and atmosphere of the Tokyo Games.
Spectators also increase risks significantly, and will depend on virus and vaccination levels in Tokyo and in other Games areas.
Proof of inoculation or negative Covid-19 status would also likely be required for admission, in line with protocols in place or planned for major international and continental events this summer.
Spectator attendance will also depend on confidence in venue ventilation and air purification systems and reconfiguration of venue seating at safe distances from fields of play and athletes.
GAMES DESIGNED TO ‘PROTECT LIVES’
Strong and prolonged opposition to the Tokyo Games on public health grounds might be starting to soften according to most recent polls. Another possible turning point.
Concern also over the failure of government emergency restrictions to stop the virus spreading, with average daily new infections starting to dip and stabilise.
The Government’s ‘proceed at almost any cost’ messaging around the Games has alienated many sectors of Japanese society and international support.
“The urgency of countermeasures, including playbooks – the new rules governing life and avoiding potential death at the Games – must also be better communicated.”
Moving forward, Tokyo authorities must urgently soften communications around the Games and address messaging which has been out of step with the mood of national and international audiences.
Japan’s public health fears and challenges of the Games need to more directly and empathetically addressed and communicated.
This is vital to rebuilding trust and confidence.
The urgency of countermeasures, including playbooks – the new rules governing life and avoiding potential death at the Games – must also be better communicated. “These are Covid-19 counter measures designed to protect people’s lives,” Toshiro Muto, chief executive of Tokyo Games organisation, said recently.
CONCLUSION
The test event protocols and related countermeasures indicate a potential pandemic resistant pathway through the Games might be possible.
The Covid situation in world sport remains fragile with recent Covid scares at the French Open and PGA tour. Some athletes have already been eliminated from the Games after testing positive in Olympic qualification.
Highly infectious and rapidly spreading variant strains are now circulating globally, while knowledge of new transmission settings and risks is still evolving, like the virus.
This means the Tokyo Games is highly unlikely to avoid Covid entirely, but the countermeasures, along with growing vaccination coverage in Japan and amongst international Olympic athletes and participants, will help to make Tokyo Covid safer if not Covid proof or virus free.
A zero risk environment is not possible.
OLYMPIC FLAME STILL BURNING
A senior IOC member recently said only an Armageddon-like event could stop the Games. As he spoke, the Torch Relay was tracking prophetically through largely empty streets resembling deserted landscapes from Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic novel The Road.
The Olympic flame is still burning and torch teams are still on the road to Tokyo, despite earlier infections.
They know the Olympic Games awaits at the end of that road, excluding a viral Armageddon – the sombre terminology and reality surrounding the all encompassing threat this virus represents to the world and the Games.
“A senior IOC member recently said only an Armageddon-like event could stop the Games.”
Organisers believe they are prepared for almost all eventualities. “All of the plans to protect safety and security of athletes are based around worst possible circumstances,” Coates said recently.
A host nation on high alert will be waiting to welcome the torch carriers – the front line Games workers who have kept the flame burning for Tokyo and the world.
Japan, a nation that often expresses itself through sport in times of adversity, will also be waiting with pride for its athletes as they emerge from the shadows of the pandemic for their home Games.
GETTING GAMES READY
Following test event rehearsals, the stages are being adjusted in venues for performances that many feared might never have been seen. The story of the Tokyo Games has been one of turning points and sliding doors. Those doors may soon be opening to the world.
The massive scaffolding of support needed for Games operations and production crews is moving into place, accreditations and visas continue to be processed, and referees are being instructed on line.
The Games now is highly likely to happen. It seems there will be no turning back.
Anxious Olympic athletes and organisers, nervous medical experts and expectant global audiences will soon be awaiting the official start to the Games and praying for a Covid safe Games ending.
Michael Pirrie is a communications and campaign consultant sand Olympic Games advisor who has worked on test events programs for the London and Sydney Olympic Games committees.
Tokyo’s Test Events Signal A More Hopeful Olympic Summer
Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie says the success of Tokyo’s recent test events could build confidence in the safety of the Games amidst continued concerns from citizens, as well as recent comments from high-profile female tennis star Naomi Osaka.
A Tale of Three Cities: The Best & Worst Of Times for Sport In Countdown To Tokyo Olympic Games
Michael Pirrie reflects on a weekend for sport like no other in the pandemic and fight against Covid.
Just as Charles Dickens wrote in his Tale of Two Cities, the past weekend has seen possibly the best and worst of times for sport and the world since the start of the pandemic.
The best of times for sport as record crowds ventured back to major venues in two of the world’s sporting capitals, in London and Melbourne.
And the worst of times too as the global death toll and infections from the pandemic also reached new levels while vaccination rates and supplies struggled to keep up.
It was the Dickens epoch of belief and of incredulity too.
India was overwhelmed and suffering due to a lack of hospital oxygen supplies and record highs of new daily infections while the Indian Premier League cricket competition played on through the unprecedented doomsday-like scenario.
“These were times of dark contrast for global sport and a world in deep and prolonged Covid crisis, as Wembley hosted the League Cup final in front of 8,000 spectators.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s Olympic Games build-up continued even as virus infection levels have surged.
These were times of dark contrast for global sport and a world in deep and prolonged Covid crisis, as Wembley hosted the League Cup final in front of 8,000 spectators who created history just by turning up.
NEW POSSIBILITIES
After almost a year of ghost games the spiritual home of football slowly came alive again.
With infection levels dipping dramatically across Great Britain in recent weeks, this was the biggest post-Covid gathering of football fans in the UK since the pandemic emptied cities and stadia across Europe.
The audience of 8,000, capped for Covid safety, also provided a glimpse of the road ahead for sport post pandemic.
“Football fans needed a negative Covid-19 test – which Olympic ticket holders might also need in Tokyo if limited domestic spectators are allowed to attend.”
Tickets alone were not enough to be part of the Wembley experience. Nor could money or a season ticket secure entry.
Football fans needed a negative Covid-19 test – which Olympic ticket holders might also need in Tokyo if limited domestic spectators are allowed to attend.
Following a winter of despair, the return of fans to Wembley also seemed like it may have come straight from the spring of hope in the Dickens classic.
If Wembley tickets were scarce, getting a seat was much easier at Australia’s own iconic stadium, Melbourne Cricket Ground, which created sporting history on a grand scale this past Sunday.
WORLD RECORD
The modernised former main stadium for the 1956 Olympic Games welcomed nearly 10 times as many fans than Wembley to its local football code known as Aussie Rules.
This was the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness perhaps as well from Dickens.
The sight of endless lines of fans filling level after level of the massive monolith stadium structure, located on the outskirts of Melbourne’s central business district, was staggering.
Like an illusion, this seemed to defy the reality of the pandemic in the wider world beyond the Australian city and country, the images capturing world-wide attention of media and sporting federations, governing bodies and organising committees, including Tokyo Olympic Games organisers.
This was more that a preview of the new normal for sport and society. It was like a return to normal.
The only rules that seemed to apply were on the field of play in Melbourne.
Masks were a rarity and Covid-free passes were not required in the crowd of 78,113. Ticket holders were confined to limited areas inside the stadium to facilitate contact tracing if necessary.
This was the biggest spectator event of the pandemic, eclipsing the 67,000 that attended a Twenty20 cricket contest between India and England in Ahmedabad last month.
Melbourne has not recorded a single locally acquired case of Covid for many weeks, effectively suppressing the virus.
This followed an extremely limited outbreak in some outer areas of the city earlier this year which was quickly contained during the Australian Open Tennis Grand Slam, the first international sporting event of the pandemic with spectators.
Importantly, no cases of covid cross-infection were detected amongst tennis spectators, players nor in communities surrounding the Melbourne tennis venues and facilities.
The return of spectators to Wembley in London and surprising scale of Melbourne’s latest major sporting event is now being closely studied by public health experts, epidemiologists and sporting bodies.
London and Melbourne’s crowds were hard won and achieved only after long and mandatory lockdowns across almost all sectors of their nations.
There have been no cases or traces so far of corona in Melbourne since the Sunday football blockbuster crowd, which defied expectations for a sporting event in a global emergency like the pandemic.
While the Melbourne football phenomenon has set a new benchmark for post pandemic sport, this was more than a sporting event.
It was part of a solemn ritual that combined the twin strands of Australian history and culture that continue to influence its society and place in the modern world – events on the sporting field and battlefield.
Attending the annual 25 April football event is seen as a duty by many Melbournians to honour the fallen men and women of Australia, along with their neighbouring New Zealand comrades involved in modern wars and battles – from Gallipoli to Afghanistan – known as ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps).
From a deserted and empty venue last year, the Melbourne stadium’s dramatic transformation over the weekend was surreal and incongruous with the world at war with Covid.
While the blare of sirens marked different stages of the football contest, it was the sound of ambulance sirens and screams for oxygen that pierced India’s suburban landscapes while sports halls provided temporary respite for communities devastated by the ever escalating catastrophe of Covid, a country which is planned to host the ICC’s T20 Cricket World Cup towards the back end of the year.
“The tale of a third city remains unfinished as Tokyo went into another emergency lockdown on Sunday.”
If the weekend’s events in the UK and Australia offered new insights and possibilities into the safety of spectator sport events, the tale of a third city remains unfinished as Tokyo went into another emergency lockdown on Sunday.
The impact of the lockdown, just three months out from the Olympic Games, will decide whether virus transmission can be curbed low enough for domestic residents to safely attend their home Games.
The short term impact of lockdown will also determine the next set of Playbook rules for the Games.
The rules will need to be updated regularly based on the latest available information on Covid levels and trends in the countdown and during the Games.
Michael Pirrie is an international communications strategy advisor and commentator on the Olympic Games and major events; a founding member of the London 2012 Olympic bid, Michael was also executive adviser to the London Olympic Games organising committee and chair, Seb Coe.
Cherry Blossoms, Covid & The Search For Hope
Olympic Games adviser Michael Pirrie analyses the unique challenges facing the Tokyo Olympics as the final countdown begins for the postponed Games after the 100 days to go mark was passed this Wednesday.
Japan’s world famous cherry blossom season heralds greater significance this year than in previous times for the Olympic host nation and wider world.
The Sakura blossoms offer a symbol of hope in a world still reeling from the Covid pandemic after more than a year and counting.
Hope of a fight back against Covid as lockdowns localise and shorten; travel bans and quarantine restrictions begin to ease in some parts of the world; and limits on vaccine production and distribution are addressed.
“With no known delivery guide for the mega international event in a global health emergency, there was initially no Plan B for Tokyo to get to the 100-day staging post.”
Hope too for Tokyo organisers that sport’s mission impossible might be more viable and possible as pre-Games build up programs push ahead in a world still fearful but more familiar and living with the pandemic.
This includes more Olympic qualifying events; NBC, BBC and other broadcaster trailers and lead-ins; venue overlay installations and technology testing; and even the unauthorised publication of Opening Ceremony information, now a standard pre-Games host city event.
The resumption of the dramatically slimmed down Torch Relay – watched and followed more online than on the streets – making its way to Tokyo to ignite the Games cauldron is a symbol of that hope.
So too is Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama’s, historic US Masters win, cheered and heard across the Olympic host nation and around the world.
This was an outpouring of national joy by Japan, born of the nation’s obsession with golf, and a demonstration of sport’s unique capacity to unite a nation and inspire global audiences.
Japan celebrated a new national hero who will next represent his country at the Tokyo Games later this year on the Olympic golf greens at Kasumigaseki Country Club, outside the host city.
Matsuyama’s surprise win, with spectators in attendance, was also was a victory over local Covid conditions as well as Augusta’s formidable and fabled fairways.
This lifted the mood of Japan and reminded the host nation again of why it wanted to host the world’s biggest sporting event.
Matasayma’s victory comes in the week Japan has been marking 100 days to the Games.
The latest Tokyo countdown milestone, like Matasayma’s golfing triumph, comes against the odds.
While Japan bypassed the landmark Olympic calendar diary date last year following postponement of the Games, many feared Tokyo might be forced to cancel for a second and final time.
The countdown landmark is also an expression of hope and sign of survival too for the Tokyo Games.
The Olympic preparations for Tokyo have been questioned and challenged like no other Games by a pandemic that has severely affected sport and nations worldwide.
With no known delivery guide for the mega international event in a global health emergency, there was initially no Plan B for Tokyo to get to the 100-day staging post.
Arriving at 100 days out was like finding a passage from base camp to the peaks of Everest without a compass or map.
As athletes and players from around the world prepare to take the field in Tokyo in July however the virus refuses to yield.
“Japan’s new Olympic committee leader has brought greater empathy to the challenge of organising the Games.”
The 100 day benchmark coincides with a new surge in Coronavirus infections, making the final ascent to the pinnacle of the Everest of world sport even more hazardous.
The new surge raises further fears about the fragile future and support for the pandemic-stricken Games, with a new poll indicating many Japanese would prefer the Games to be deferred or cancelled.
The IOC however remains confident Japan will get behind its home games.
The latest Covid outbreak comes amid a new approach and attitude to managing the Games, symbolised by the energetic style on new Tokyo Olympic Games boss Seiko Hashimoto.
NEW GAMES APPROACH
Japan’s new Olympic committee leader has brought greater empathy to the challenge of organising the Games and calming fears the air of excitement that traditionally surrounds an Olympic host city will also be filled with the virus.
Using her new position on the national and international stage, the former Olympic athlete and Minister has sought to reassure an anxious host country and world sceptical about the safety of the rapidly approaching Games.
The concerns of the Japanese people have been acknowledged and addressed more directly and openly.
A wider perspective and conversation has also commenced with the public and media about the Covid crisis and the Games.
This has even included discussion and debate over a moral imperative to stage the Games as a beacon of hope to the world and the key to safety as organisers attempt to finalise plans compatible with both perspectives.
This contrasts with the crash through or crash communications style of the previous local Games leadership.
This approach failed to adequately acknowledge the scale of the pandemic challenge facing Japan and the Games nor the risks involved with a virus that doesn’t need a ticket or day pass to enter Olympic venues.
“The revised public communications strategy – which includes releasing high-level Games policy information to targeted media – has sought to increase the public’s understanding of safety for the Games.”
While adamant the Games would go ahead – even as global Covid deaths, disease and hospitalisations soared – little information was available until recently about how this would be done.
Speculation about the future of the Games increased as the information vacuum widened and Covid infections spread.
Assumptions underpinning the new master plan for the postponed Games were constantly reassessed, reviewed and reworked.
The revised public communications strategy – which includes releasing high-level Games policy information to targeted media – has sought to increase the public’s understanding of safety for the Games.
The recent publication of the first set of Covid counter measures helped to fill the information void that alienated public support.
The mandatory masking, testing, and travel restrictions, along with other rules outlined in Games playbooks, has helped to inform an apprehensive Olympic host city and nation about measures to address a virus that refuses to play by the book and makes its own rules.
PANDEMIC PRISM FOR GAMES
This Hanami blossom-watching season has also brought the unique challenges facing the Games in Tokyo into much sharper focus.
The full impact of the pandemic on the Games is becoming clearer. The scale and complexity in the final days and stages of Games preparations is monumental.
Years of painstaking operational planning must be transferred from computer screens to competition sites and venues in the Olympic park and other venue clusters and settings.
The many imponderables however that still surround the pandemic mean that the ensuing days will be critical in determining the fate of the Olympics in July.
While the last 100 days of preparations has traditionally been regarded as a defining period for each Games, the future of the Games will be decided in a much shorter time frame.
The Covid levels in Tokyo may soon become too high for a public sporting event as big as the Olympic Games.
BACK TO BASICS GAMES
While North Korea has withdrawn from the Games more for political motivations than health concerns, other national Olympic teams will scale back their delegations and teams pending the covid situation.
Vaccines will become a priority issue for athletes as well as many thousands of volunteers, the front line workers for the Games, if the Covid surge continues.
While China has offered to vaccinate international athletes for Tokyo as well as the Beijing Winter Olympics next year, many Olympic nations may harbour deep concerns about the transparency of medical trials and safety of China’s domestic vaccines.
Tokyo will be a back to basics Games, with full focus on the welfare of athletes.
This will be a fly in and fly out Games following competition in order to limit international numbers and movements in Tokyo.
These pose the single biggest threat of cross infection for Japanese communities, visiting athletes and their home nations on return.
CONCLUSION
The Games will be decided through the prism of the pandemic. Facilities and communities must be rendered Covid-safe as soon as possible in the countdown to the Games.
This is vital to restoring domestic and international confidence in the safety of the Games, and essential to keeping preparations for the vitally important competition and broadcast schedules on time for the Games.
Amidst the ever present Covid threat, Games organisers hope that prospects for the Games will endure well beyond the fleeting cherry blossom season and stretch all the way to the opening ceremony.