Pride and anxiety mingle in Japan as Olympic medal tally, COVID cases rise | Tokyo Olympics 2020

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Japan broke two records last week. On Thursday, the day its athletes took their medals to a level unprecedented in the country’s Olympic history, the host city reported 5,042 cases of coronavirus – the highest daily total since the start of the pandemic.

Japan continued to widen the gap between its medal count at Tokyo 2020 and Rio, winning 41 medals. And now, with 56 medals, it ranks third in the overall table after China and the United States on the eve of the closing ceremony.

In the days after tennis star Naomi Osaka ignited the cauldron in an empty Olympic stadium, a string of local judo successes sent the pool and skateboarding park temporarily inundated, with objections to holding the games in the midst of a pandemic. .

It looked as if the Japanese public, who had told pollsters on multiple occasions that they didn’t want the Olympics on their doorstep this summer, had reconciled their anxiety with admiration for champion athletes.

On the few occasions sporting events have erupted from their inner bubble, enforcing spectator bans has become virtually impossible. Thousands watched road bike races, crowds once again in the northern city of Sapporo for marathons this weekend, even as Japan’s cumulative case count surpassed 1 million and the number of seriously ill COVID-19 patients doubled the number two weeks ago. .

The answer to the question of whether anti-virus and sports measures, most of which are cheerful, to make a successful whole, depends on who is asked.

A less surprising assessment came from Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose drastic dismissal of domestic concern over the Games made him a hate figure on social media in a country that has treated tens of thousands. Visitors are patient and kind.

Bach said the games “far exceeded expectations,” ignoring any indication of a link between the event and an increase in the number of cases in the host city. Viewed from a narrow perspective, it’s hard to argue with him: Opening night nerves were tamed among sponsors, the day of paying the multi-billion-dollar television rights to the International Olympic Committee is safe, and Bach had his audience with the Emperor of Japan.

The certainty with which Bach denies his Olympic role, however episodic, in the latest surge of the virus is matched only by Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, who, like an athletic climber holding on to dear life, clung to the mantles of medal winners. Hoping for an Olympic boost in time for what promises a tough election this fall. He used his social media accounts to congratulate each Japanese winner and even made a noteworthy public phone call to Tokyo 2020’s first domestic champion, Judo Naohisa Takato. He didn’t have much to say about the rise in cases and the increasing pressure on hospitals.

Japan’s Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron during the Games opening ceremony. Photo: Natacha Pisarenko / AP

Instead, he sparked outrage by saying that only Covid patients who show serious symptoms, or are at risk of contracting them, will be hospitalized. Everyone else, including people with “mild” symptoms such as shortness of breath, will be asked to recover at home.

While he has since modified hospital standards of care under pressure from his own party, he plows the same political groove that made him effective in his previous incarnation as the government’s top spokesperson: he repeats the same claim regularly so that, eventually, even skeptics may be persuaded.

Suga said again Friday that there was “no evidence” of a link between the Olympics and the recent surge in infections, while his chief medical advisor, Shigeru Omi, warned that the festive atmosphere surrounding the games was complacency.

“The fact that the Olympics are being held has had an impact on people’s consciousness,” said Omi, who weeks ago described organizing the Games during the pandemic as “unnatural.”

With Tokyo 2020 reaching its climax, Suga and Bach are immersed in Olympic hoaxes that could be revealed when more is known about the behavior patterns that led to the recent outbreak. Both have spent months advocating the spirit of hope the games will bring to a strained host community, but they seem to turn their backs when her physical expression — more social interaction — comes at the expense of overall health.

The last time Tokyo hosted the Olympics, in 1964, Japan took the opportunity to demonstrate its transformation from a military aggressor to a full member of the community of responsible nations, with a constitution that prevents it from going to war again. Nearly six decades later, the world’s third largest economy, whose techniques, folk culture and cuisine are celebrated around the world, didn’t need another Olympiad to prove its international credentials.

This time around, it will be judged on whether it has succeeded in carrying out what at times seemed like an impossible task: welcoming tens of thousands of visitors to a sporting event while at the same time preventing it from multiplying the spread of superviruses.

Reliable answers have to wait long after the athletes, journalists, sponsors and officials leave. Only then will the Japanese public be able to decide whether the multibillion-dollar Olympics they helped fund but were prevented from watching were – at least in the immediate sense – worth the risk.

Remember, Tokyo is under a fourth emergency that will last until at least the end of the month, when the Paralympic Games are in full swing. Experts advising the Tokyo metropolitan government predict that the seven-day average of cases circulating in the capital could rise to about 10,900 per day by August 18 if current transmission trends continue. Incredibly, Suga and local organizers still refuse to rule out lifting the ban on spectators attending the events.

As warnings from the medical community become more pressing, Suga will prefer to stick with the message delivered this week by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield. She said Japan should be proud of overcoming “great tribulations” to host the Games during the pandemic.

Within hours of the closing ceremony on Sunday evening, Bach and the rest of the IOC will breathe a sigh of relief and head home, their thoughts turning to the new set of challenges posed by the Winter Games in Beijing in February. Back in Japan, their former hosts will still be holding their breath.

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