Tokyo Olympics ... [no foreign fans] [no fans period]

[Conor Dary]

Experts warn of "critical" COVID surge in Tokyo during Olympics

Health experts warned Wednesday of a possible "critical" coronavirus situation in Tokyo, estimating that daily infections in the capital could hit a record of around 2,600 in early August during the Olympics.

The metropolitan government reported 1,832 new COVID-19 cases the same day, the highest since mid-January, as public concern remains high that the Olympics could become a superspreader event with particular concern about the transmission of the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2...-olympics.html

[Conor Dary]

Paranoia grows in Olympic bubble, as athletes and media worry about getting "pinged" into self-isolation and quarantined out of the Games

https://mobile.twitter.com/muradahme...97905075691526

[tandfman]

Meanwhile...

Athletes to sleep on ‘anti-sex’ cardboard beds at Olympic Games amid COVID

https://nypost.com/2021/07/18/athlet...olympic-games/

The Onion's funny take on this:

Headline - Olympic Committee Discourages Sex During Competitions

https://www.theonion.com/olympic-com...ons-1847321763

[TN1965]

Tokyo's drinkers drown frustrations over virus limits, Games (yahoo.com)

On the eve of the Tokyo Olympics, the government’s attempt to curb a coronavirus surge by targeting drinkers is drowning in liquor, frustration and indifference.

[Conor Dary]

Financial Times

Olympic quarantine rules rile athletes, delegates and media



MURAD AHMED, ROBIN HARDING, LEO LEWIS AND KANA INAGAKI — TOKYO

Dozens of self-isolation orders have caused anxiety in the Tokyo Olympics bubble, where athletes and delegates fear they could miss the Games after coming into contact with a Covidinfected person.

Athletes who have come into contact with a person who has tested positive have been told to quarantine and train alone under strict rules. Competitors will still be allowed to participate as long as they continue to pass daily tests.


Many inside the Olympics bubble fear being “pinged” — notified by an app designed to track the 79,000 overseas travellers attending the Games that they have been near someone who tested positive. “I think the rules are fluid, not properly understood by everyone, and probably not yet thought through,” said Michael Payne, a former marketing director for the International Olympic Committee. “Something has to give.”

The British team said this week that six track and field athletes had been forced into isolation after being identified as coming into close contact with a person who had sat near them on a plane to Tokyo and had tested positive.

The entire staff of BBC Scotland have been forced to self-isolate for 14 days after sitting close to an infected person while travelling to Japan.

[TN1965]

Yet another scandal, right before the Opening Ceremony...

Kentaro Kobayashi, Olympics Opening Ceremony Director, Dismissed Over Holocaust Jokes (thedailybeast.com)

Kentaro Kobayashi, director of the Tokyo Olympics’ opening ceremony, was dismissed late Wednesday over footage of him joking about the Holocaust.

[Conor Dary]

Olympics in 2021 spur frustration in Tokyo: 'People just want their lives back'

And so last week I called my friend Kota Ishijima, a Tokyo actress and musician who has worked as a translator for ESPN. Before I could ask a question, she said, "Can you believe this? They're doing this, and everyone is against it. Why are they doing this?"

Despite polls indicating two-thirds of the people in Japan doubt the Games can be held safely, volunteers and part-time workers, nearly all of whom commute by train, are being asked to wear their full Tokyo 2020 regalia from home to their destinations. Ryan Yamazaki, who has interviewed workers and athletes as part of her work on the official Olympic film, says the anger surrounding the Games has many of the volunteers feeling uneasy about displaying their uniforms to the general public.

"When these volunteers signed up, this is not what they were expecting," she says. "They expected to be respected -- that is the Japanese tradition -- but this is a different environment now. It takes courage to wear that uniform and let it be known you're part of the Olympics. Nobody could have predicted this."


https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/...eir-lives-back

[Conor Dary]

Japanese media, according to those with whom I spoke, are driving skepticism. Daytime news-panel shows trot out an endless roster of guests criticizing the government's decision to allow the IOC to hold the Games. Footage of Bach arriving in Tokyo and waving from the window of his car plays on endless loop. In his first visit to the Olympic Village, Bach spoke to the volunteers and referred to the Japanese people as "the Chinese people" before correcting himself.

Ishijima says, "I've never seen this level of anger, and it's spreading. It's almost 100% in the people I encounter. They're to the point where they won't even watch."

[scottmitchell74]

In a way it's good to know it's not just the US media that are a bunch of ratings-chasing instigating rat bleeps.

[CookyMonzta]

I think the power of NBC will force the issue. That is....maybe....unless Simone Biles is knocked out by the virus. Then the network would have 8 days of non Biles material they'd need to come up with.

Speaking of which, there is word that NBC may go out of their way to protect her...

https://insider-voice.com/nbc-will-g...ic-popemobile/

...Which brings me back to my earlier suspicion that the virus could be used as a weapon, to knock off medal favorites, especially gold-medal favorites. Nothing less than a monumental uproar would ensue if contenders like Biles, Ledecky, Crouser or McLaughlin were hit with the virus out of nowhere before their scheduled events, and forced out.

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile...

Tokyo Olympics organizers have fired the director of the opening ceremony over past holocaust remarks.


https://mobile.twitter.com/dwnews/st...47287125635072

[Conor Dary]

The new Olympic motto: Should this even be happening?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...okyo-olympics/

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile....in Tokyo it is 2:52 am and the temperature is 80F and the dew point is 73F. That is very warm and muggy.

[Conor Dary]

TOKYO — For many, seeing an Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games, some residents couldn’t get out of town fast enough.

Roads out of the city were jammed on Thursday morning, and people packed onto flights to popular vacation destinations.

The opening ceremony on Friday will have an audience of only 950 people in a stadium that was built for the Olympics and able to hold 68,000. Spectators are barred from nearly all competitions, a vast majority of which will be held in Tokyo.

There are not many other reasons to stay in Tokyo at the moment: The weather is scorching, with temperatures in the 90s and humidity at over 50 percent. The city has been under a state of emergency for weeks in an effort to curb a surge in coronavirus cases fueled by the contagious Delta variant. Most restaurants and bars close at 8 p.m. And road closures for the Games have backed up traffic on some streets in the city center.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07...eeing-the-city

[Conor Dary]

New Reported Coronavirus Cases at the Olympics


So far, at least 91 people with Olympic credentials, including 10 athletes, have tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan. Others have tested positive before their departure to the Games and are not included in the chart below.