Japan should cut its losses and tell the IOC to take its Olympic pillage somewhere else

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Olympics • Perspective

Japan should cut its losses and tell the IOC to take its Olympic pillage somewhere else

By Sally Jenkins
Columnist
May 5, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Somewhere along the line Baron Von Ripper-off and the other gold-plated pretenders at the International Olympic Committee decided to treat Japan as their footstool. But Japan didn’t surrender its sovereignty when it agreed to host the Olympics. If the Tokyo Summer Games have become a threat to the national interest, Japan’s leaders should tell the IOC to go find another duchy to plunder. A cancellation would be hard — but it would also be a cure.

Von Ripper-off, a.k.a. IOC President Thomas Bach, and his attendants have a bad habit of ruining their hosts, like royals on tour who consume all the wheat sheaves in the province and leave stubble behind. Where, exactly, does the IOC get off imperiously insisting that the Games must go on, when fully 72 percent of the Japanese public is reluctant or unwilling to entertain 15,000 foreign athletes and officials in the midst of a pandemic?

The answer is that the IOC derives its power strictly from the Olympic “host contract.” It’s a highly illuminating document that reveals much about the highhanded organization and how it leaves host nations with crippling debts. Seven pages are devoted to “medical services” the host must provide — free of charge — to anyone with an Olympic credential, including rooms at local hospitals expressly reserved for them and only them. Tokyo organizers have estimated they will need to divert about 10,000 medical workers to service the IOC’s demands.

Eight Olympic workers tested positive for the coronavirus during the torch relay last week — though they were wearing masks. Less than 2 percent of Japan’s population is vaccinated. Small wonder the head of Japan’s medical workers’ union, Susumu Morita, is incensed at the prospect of draining mass medical resources. “I am furious at the insistence on staging the Olympics despite the risk to patients’ and nurses’ health and lives,” he said in a statement.

{snip}

Dr. Shigeru Omi, who heads the Japanese government panel on the coronavirus response, warned a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that the virus is spreading and putting hospitals under stress. ... Olympic organizers say they will need about 10,000 medical professionals during the Olympics, and recently officials requested an additional 500 nurses. Nursing groups immediately protested, saying they were used as pawns.

“The infections are definitely spreading, including in developing countries, and so it is important to thoroughly understand this situation and know there are definitely risks,” Omi said. ... “It is time the (Olympic) organizers and others involved to be responsible and seriously start thinking about how infections are spreading, and the medical system is getting stretched thin, and then to inform the public.”

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Associated Press reporter Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

[msongs]

1. perhaps the olympics ppl can be quarantined and confined to quarters nt

[DinahMoeHum]

2. No to cancellation, but yes to further postponement . . .

. . .until 2022 is what I say.

The world is still in the middle of this pandemic, and until vaccinations and protocols are shown to have brought this disease to heel the world over, one cannot really bring that many people together in a restricted space right now.

And I'm not talking about overseas tourists, either. Even if they weren't there, there's still a whole slew of people gathering - athletes, coaches, officials/referees, media companies' personnel, government officials, safety personnel, etc. that have to be accommodated.

For further insights, author/professor Jules Boykoff is an excellent source.
https://twitter.com/JulesBoykoff?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://julesboykoff.org/

[brush]

3. Agreed. I'd go with '22. If vax/covid environment hasn't...

improved by then, just cancel it and wait for the '24 games (but is '22 even workable since the Winter games are scheduled for then?). I do feel for the athletes who've been training for first '20 then '21, especially those who were looking a their last chance at making an Olympic team.

Sometimes reality intrudes on life and plans.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. Until 1992/1994, the Winter and Summer games were held. . .

. . .in the same calendar year. I see no reason this can't happen again in 2022, since both Games will be in Asia (China and Japan)

Sadly, foresight is not the IOC's strong point.

[brush]

5. The IOC certainly has problems (kickbacks?) But they got...

changing the winter and summer games to different years right. Let's see what happens with the covid situation in a year.