First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

The 2020 Tokyo Games were never going to be an ordinary gathering of the world’s finest athletes, not that any Olympiad is ordinary, because of the scale of the event. But Tokyo 2020 is operating in extraordinary times because of the Covid-19 pandemic, made more difficult by the resistance of the Japanese public.

Most don’t want it to happen as Japan still buckles under the weight of the pandemic, but go ahead it will, with many of the expected 70,000 athletes, media and officials already descending on Japan. The Games start on 23 July and end on 8 August.

Compared with the number of people who are now arriving in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, the few positive cases that have been flagged are minuscule. But the influx of people has only just begun and already we have seen the disruption, even for those athletes who are not Covid-positive.

New infections in Tokyo surged to a nearly six-month high of 1,308 on 15 July and medical experts continue to caution about the upward curve.

Japan’s mostly voluntary restrictions have failed to curb the movement of people, which can spread contagion.

An example of the disruption Covid-19 will cause in the coming three weeks has a local feel to it. The South African men’s sevens team were ushered into isolation upon arrival in Japan late on 13 July, local time.

The squad, who won’t use the “Blitzboks” moniker at the Olympics, were quarantined. None of the South African delegation returned a positive test, but a passenger on their flight not linked to the squad produced a positive Covid-19 return, which has led to a knock-on effect.

A total of 18 Team SA members – 14 players plus four from management – were put in a quarantine facility about 30 minutes from the Olympic village in Tokyo.

They have since been released, but it cost Neil Powell’s team two days of preparation. And there is no guarantee it won’t happen again. A player or a close contact could return a positive test, forcing more isolation.

“We are in a good space, despite the upheavals we encountered once we arrived,” Powell said from Tokyo. “We made a commitment to each other when we started this campaign that we will be mentally strong as well and that was tested with this episode. Adaptability – both mental and physical – will be key at this Olympics and we already felt that when we arrived.

“We took a knock, but I can say the players took it in their stride. We can only control the controllable, so we remain positive. We will still have a training session while we wait for clearance – the only difference is it will be via Zoom call with the players in their rooms.”

That incident and several others like it (see sidebar) have raised the spectre that a gold medal favourite may end up missing their event because of the Covid-19 protocols.

The grizzly scenario of, say, gymnastics queen Simone Biles or South Africa’s Akani Simbine having to isolate and miss their competition time is a reality. It’s almost inevitable that it will happen to  athletes sometime during these Games.

Fanless Games

Another spectre that will haunt the Olympics is that there will be no fans in arenas and stadiums, robbing them of heightened drama. That is likely to affect television viewers more than the athletes themselves, who have become used to eerie silence in competition.

But no fans has economic ramifications, with local business and sponsors suffering. According to a Reuters report: “The involvement of domestic sponsors is critical as they have pumped more than $3-billion into the games – 60% of the organising committee’s total budget.

“In 2019, Tokyo 2020 was reported to have secured record domestic sponsorship revenues. These sponsorship agreements depend on creating in-person opportunities – through business meetings at city buildings and sporting venues, and access to fans.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is so powerful it can dictate policy to governments over by-laws and make ludicrous demands on cities hosting the Olympics.

For the IOC it is essential the Tokyo Olympics go ahead in the midst of a global pandemic because it cannot afford them not to. Although almost all of the costs of preparing the city to host the Olympics have been borne by Tokyo and the Japanese government, earnings largely go to the IOC.

TV rights and sponsorship contracts are held by the IOC and a portion of those are paid over to the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. But only if the Olympics go ahead. Despite the speeches about Corinthian values, the reality is that the Olympics, and any other professional sport for that matter, are dictated by money.

Technology battle

These Games will also be at the forefront of a technological battle – especially on the track, where new spikes are altering records, literally at a staggering pace.

The Nike Viperfly and Vaporfly shoes for sprinting and road-running respectively started a growing avalanche. Those shoes have too many technical aspects to go into here, save that they use a controversial carbon plate and midsole thickness. Other manufacturers such as Adidas have also developed shoes that are helping to break records that might not otherwise have been broken.

According to respected sports scientist Ross Tucker, writing for DM168 in March 2021, “what makes the track situation particularly destabilising is that, unlike for the road shoe, there is not yet any well-controlled laboratory research on the track shoe.

“Shoes have existed for decades, always with some small potential to enhance performance. But the current situation is uniquely problematic because the potential to enhance performance has never been quite so large, or appeared quite so suddenly,” wrote Tucker.

“Never before has a shoe been worth as much as the 4% these shoes appear to provide to some athletes. Worst of all, this has created a situation where we cannot even confidently compare athletes in the same race, because the difference between their shoes may be larger than the normal difference between their physiology.”

Tokyo 2020 will go ahead, but it faces an uncertain outcome because its credibility will be tarnished if athletes are isolated through no fault of their own – or if one beats another based on the quality of their footwear.

Let the Games begin. DM168