Or should we say...
It was an Olympics like no other. But not because of the ambition
of the organizers or amazing athletic performances. Those were great. These
games happened during a global pandemic that was turning the world upside down.
With thousands of athletes’ Olympic dreams hanging in the balance...
And it did, eventually.
So how did the organizers pull it off, and what is the games’ legacy
now that Tokyo’s Olympic flame has gone out?
1964. The new prosperous Japan,
the fifth largest industrial power in the world and the only one in Asia.
The 2020 Olympics and Paralympics were supposed to be Tokyo’s return to the
spotlight and a nostalgic nod to the success of the 1964 Summer Games.
That edition marked Japan’s economic ascendency and helped propel the
nation onto the global stage, with the country becoming the world’s
just four years later.
Now the world’s third largest economy after China,
the Japanese government and the Games’ organizers had high hopes for the
2020 Games, set on making strides in areas like diversity and sustainability.
You can’t put on an event this big without contingency plans, even without a pandemic
to contend with. For Rio, there were concerns about Zika and water quality.
Tokyo's contingency plans were largely centered around natural disasters like an
earthquake or typhoon - though the risk of infectious disease wasn’t ignored.
Like a lot of people, it took a while before we started to realize
how significant this outbreak was becoming, and the fact that it would indeed have implications.
Dr Brian McCloskey is an expert on the management of infectious disease
outbreaks. He set up the public health system for the 2012 games in London
and served as an advisor to the IOC for Rio and Tokyo’s games.
We started looking at what Tokyo would have to do to ensure that the Games could
be run safely in 2020, and the eventual conclusion was that because we understood
relatively little about Coronavirus at that stage, because every country was trying to
work out the best way of dealing with it in their country and protecting their
population, it was probably unreasonable to ask the Japanese government to do that,
and to run the Games in 2020 at the same time.
In late March 2020, the Games were officially postponed,
news that served as an abrupt end to the Olympic dream for some and a blessing for others.
First three months, I didn't skate at all because Corona was
going like crazy, and people were really scared about Coronavirus.
When we went into lockdown, it was just, “How am I going to be able
to train for the Olympics this summer, when we can't do anything?” I panicked probably.
Training for the Olympics is usually a
full-time job, one that many athletes begin preparing for from a very young age.
a British modern pentathlete, and
a Japanese professional skateboarder, were no different.
Despite the uncertainty at the time, Hidemasa Nakamura, Tokyo’s chief games
delivery officer, knew how important it was to give athletes like Yuto and Kate some clarity.
It is very easy to say we will provide the Games if the situation
will be approved to be safe, but for the athletes,
they had their plan for the training, so we had to announce the specific timeframe.
The Japanese government and the IOC settled on a
which experts informed them should be
enough time for Covid-19 vaccines to become available.
And thus, the countdown clock was reset – giving organizers time to get public
health measures in place and athletes the time to train up after several months off.
We were really lucky that we could train solidly from coming
back. But obviously, we still weren't allowed to travel, or go to any competitions. It was actually
really hard because we didn't know for sure if the Olympics were still going to go
ahead. There were still a lot of question marks around it.
As the more contagious Delta variant spread across the globe,
Japan began to see its Covid-19 cases rise too. Overseas spectators
had already been banned in March, and the alarming trajectory in the
summer ultimately forced the Japanese government to issue a state of emergency.
That was unwelcome news for a Japanese public already falling out of love with the
idea of hosting the games. A survey conducted before the event found
about the event, with more than
But despite some protesters lining up outside the opening ceremony,
the first Olympic Games without spectators were in motion.
At a time when vaccination efforts were barely rolling out, an impressive
of the people travelling to Tokyo had been vaccinated.
What was not acceptable to us or to the International Olympic Committee
was a situation where, in essence, athletes from rich countries could get to the Games,
but athletes from poorer countries who couldn't get vaccinated wouldn't make it to
the Games. So, we decided early on that vaccination could not be mandatory for
the Games but would be recommended for those people who could do it.
On the ground, there were the public health measures we’ve become familiar with:
social distancing, personal hygiene, wearing masks and better ventilation.
There was also a robust track and test strategy,
with half a million vials of saliva collected across the two-week period.
And then there was the so-called
It's difficult to describe an Olympic Village of 11,500 athletes as a bubble.
Doctor McCloskey says a more appropriate term would be
They were allowed to go from the village to the training venues and the competition
venues, but they weren't allowed to go out and about around Tokyo,
they weren't allowed to use public transport,
they couldn't really leave the essential environment of the village and the venues.
All the athletes were there to perform and to perform at their best. So,
you actually felt really, really safe in the village.
These measures allowed athletes to do what they do best – compete.
For Kate and Yuto, they walked away with a gold medal to show for their efforts.
I still can't believe it happened. It's something you dream about for so long.
To be able to bring it all together on that one day that matters, it was really special.
Yuto’s gold made history. He won the Olympics’ first-ever skateboarding gold.
I was really happy I won the gold and I bring the gold in my hometown.
I feel like I won for my friends and my family. It was really important for me.
Japan ended up skating away with
in the discipline, an especially impressive achievement for a country where the sport
is illegal in most of its cities’ public spaces. Yuto and his teammates
are helping to shed its bad rap.
In Japan, skateboarding has a little bit like a bad image.
But now skateboarding is in the Olympics, actually like real sport.
Now skateparks are packed with parents signing their kids up for lessons,
and there’s even a push for the
home of the skateboarding and BMX events, to become a permanent fixture,
despite original plans for it to be torn down.
Japan’s changing attitudes extended to the Games themselves, too.
With the country winning 58 medals, 27 of them gold, the public gradually came
on board, with domestic TV ratings nearing highs not seen since the 1964 Olympics.
It also helped that the games didn’t become the “superspreader” event everyone feared.
Nobuko Kobayashi, a partner at EY Japan, one of the games’ sponsors,
has been analyzing the legacy of the games.
Tokyo pulled it off. There were no major disasters. It was executed in a safe
environment, and although there was a spike in summer,
little of it was attributed to the Games itself.
The city of Tokyo was under a state of emergency throughout the games, but
it wasn’t until a month after the end of the Paralympics that the summer wave
ended and emergency measures were lifted.
They were a success, and we’re very certain
of that. If you look at the number of positive tests we had across the games, there were
That is far, far less than any other testing scheme around the world.
If you look at the mixture between what happened among the domestic population,
and the international population, there is no sign that any mixing
happened whatsoever. The games did not impose any COVID burden on Japan.
Despite the loss of in-person spectators, the games still drew
huge attention from fans watching at home. The withdrawal of superstar gymnast
from the team and all-around gymnastics
finals focused conversations around the importance of athletes' mental health.
However, Tokyo’s diversity initiative suffered an embarrassing false start.
The president of the organizing committee
and the Games’ creative director were forced to resign over sexist comments.
It was a little bit ironic, because it really revealed the lack of understanding on the
part of the older generation in Japan regarding diversity. But it was also
a blessing in disguise, I think, because it was a catalyst to have more open discussion.
Seven-time Olympian
was appointed the new president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee, and she
appointed a further 12 women to the executive board,
bringing female representation to 42 percent.
The number of mixed events at the Olympic Games grew from eight in London 2012 to
18 in Tokyo. Nearly 49 percent of the athletes competing were women, and Tokyo was billed as the
Other achievements included the Games’ first openly trans athletes taking part
and the construction of Japan’s first permanent LGBTQ center
Sustainability was also at the
top of the agenda, falling in the same year as the high-profile COP26 climate conference.
But with massive venues having been built and hardly utilized by fans, it’s difficult
to portray the event as climate friendly. The challenges did present some opportunities though.
We made it into a social movement. We asked the Tokyo citizens and Japanese
people to donate their used cell phones, and that will make the medals.
I think the Japanese people have some feeling of involvement to the Games.
The Olympic podiums were made of recycled plastic,
the torch of recycled aluminum, the beds of cardboard, and timber used
in some of the temporary structures will be converted to public buildings and benches.
More impressive is the fact that only eight new competition venues were built from scratch.
Another ten were temporary structures.
...five of which originally built for the 1964 Games.
The Olympic Village will be converted into a large-scale condominium complex,
called Harumi Flag.
Harumi Flag is made up of three residential areas for sale, an area of rental units
and commercial facilities. All in all, there are 5,632 residences. In the future,
some 12,000 people will live here, making it a grand residential project.
The Olympic Village was developed with the use of hydrogen power in mind.
The clean-burning gas was also used to power the Games’ fleet of cars,
to generate electricity for some facilities, and fueled the Olympic torch and cauldrons.
Organizers mitigated the remaining carbon emissions by acquiring
However, climate activists remain adamant that the
only way for the Olympics to be truly sustainable is for it to get smaller.
It's a carbon neutral event, and we use the hydrogen energy
from the Fukushima and in calculation, we have the carbon neutral
Games, but the cost is another an important issue I think.
Perhaps Tokyo’s biggest legacy is providing the building blocks for the upcoming Games
in Paris and Los Angeles, both of which have even more ambitious targets to meet.
Despite being virtual, it did give the external world outside Japan, the impression that
Japan is true to its words, and it really stuck up to its commitment to host the Olympics.
It also paved the way for other large-scale events figuring out
how to move forward in the age of Covid.
It can be done safely, but it can only be done safely, if you put in the effort to
ensure you have the best possible strategy for the countermeasures that you can devise.
And Toyko also refocused the spotlight on its most important stakeholders
It's real pride to be able to compete for your country. The
unity of everyone coming together as one team as well is really special.
I made a dream come true.
Thank you for your support, everyone.