- Tokyo!
[cheers and applause]
-It was a moment of sheer joy for Japan.
- [speaking Japanese]
-A moment that's long past, in a now-jaded nation.
[up-tempo music plays]
Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics,
in the summer of 2021, even if it does not want to.
[crowd chanting] -Stop Tokyo Olympics!
- Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
- [shouting in Japanese] -These Olympic games will be
like none other.
No foreign visitors coming to show their national pride
and spend money on hotels and tickets, and no packed stadiums.
There won't be any crowds at all, not even Japanese citizens.
With no spectators allowed inside venues
to cheer on athletes,
those athletes will compete, go back to their rooms,
and then leave the country.
All of this brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic
that's still a concern here.
- It will be a shadow of what the Olympics could be.
- So, why not cancel the games, once and for all?
- The International Olympic Committee is perfectly happy
to have a made-for-TV Olympics in Tokyo,
so long as that means that the broadcaster revenues
and the corporate revenues will roll into their accounts.
That would be 9 out of every 10 dollars.
- The games were already pushed back a year,
still keeping the Tokyo 2020 branding.
A cancellation would mean busted contracts
and billions of dollars lost.
The International Olympic Committee is adamant,
the games will go on,
even if Tokyo is in a state of emergency
because of the virus, which it now is.
- I can say, it's not clearer than ever
that these games will be safe for everyone participating
and, importantly, safe for the people of Japan.
- Jules Boykoff of Pacific University
has written four books about the politics of the games.
He says these Olympics will lack the spirit,
the vitality everyone knows.
- There's just kind of no getting around that
unless you decided that for the sake of public health,
it just wasn't worth going forward with this bloodless,
joyless, transactional type of situation,
and for the sake of global public health,
you decided to shut it down.
- The games are happening
even as Japan struggles with the virus.
It's way behind other big nations
in vaccinating its own people.
At the start of the games,
only about a quarter of the population
has gotten all of their shots.
A chorus of doctors, company executives,
and the Japanese people have come out against the games.
Even the Japanese emperor is worried.
Some opinion polls put opposition at 80%,
though support may now be building.
The Japanese bureaucracy is now moving,
with the pace of shots picking up.
- It has come too late to really have a proper full Olympics
with spectators enjoying themselves,
and people from abroad and so on and so forth.
- Simon Denyer is in Tokyo as the Washington Post bureau
chief for Japan and the Koreas.
- I think there is a sense of resignation
that the show must go on,
even if it's not a very good show.
- Japan may spend close to $30 billion on the show --
possibly the most expensive Summer Olympics ever.
A yearlong delay did not help.
Money is also going to big-ticket building projects,
eight new venues, including the National Stadium,
where the games start and end.
Four sports are making their Olympic debut.
- Hyah!
- Karate, sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding.
There will be moments, for sure, like from Simone Biles,
America's most decorated gymnast.
These Olympics also come with symbolism, as all games do.
Tokyo last hosted the summer games in 1964,
announcing to the world it had arrived,
rebuilt after World War II.
These 2020 games,
a show of force for Japan against nearby rival China,
which is hosting the winter games next year.
- It wants to prove that it can do this,
and it doesn't want China to grab all the glory
of the sort of post-pandemic Olympics.
- But the Tokyo Olympics are happening in a pandemic.
There are warnings about a lack of hospital space;
worries about a new wave of infections
from welcoming some 11,000 athletes;
plus many more staff, officials, and media from the world over.
The US government has been telling its citizens
not to travel here.
Organizers say most athletes will be vaccinated,
but that's not required.
The games are lacking much
of what makes an Olympics an Olympics:
a cast of thousands of local volunteers
helping out at every venue;
and the global spread of visitors
indulging in everything from taking selfies to trading pins.
- You're probably not gonna have these rambunctious crowds
that are cheering on the athletes.
You're not gonna have the cultural exchange
that you often see in the Athletes Village or around town.
It's the athletes that make the Olympics what the Olympics are.
We should always remember that.
And the athletes are going to be
essentially handcuffed by coronavirus.
- An Olympics like no other, in a time like no other.