The Asian Olympic star rises with a record result and number of spectators

TOKYO – The success of Japanese athletes at the Home Olympics means a wider tilt of the Games towards Asia as the region hosts more often and achieves record medals.

The Tokyo Jamboree formed the second part of a symbolic trilogy of East Asian events as Asian market forces confronted U.S. broadcasters ’demands for time zones that are compatible with American viewing habits.

Japan’s position as host country for the Summer Olympics, which ended on Sunday, came after South Korea’s Pyeongchang hosted the Winter Olympics in 2018. Beijing is scheduled to host the Winter Olympics next year.

Asia has come a long way since 1964, when Japan became the region’s first host. Asian athletes won the region’s all-time medal round in Tokyo in 2020, and the size of the sports market has grown as the economy has grown. While the next three games of the summer will be held in more traditional western locations in France, the United States and Australia, developments in Southeast Asia hope to host Indonesian bids for the 2036 event.

The 2008 Beijing Games were a crucial point both for China’s position in the world and for the International Olympic Committee’s attitude towards the Asian market. “The 2008 Beijing Games were amazing for the Olympics and television, as well as for sparking new interest in the Olympic movement,” said Rob Prazmark, who helped create the IOC’s corporate sponsorship program.

A Japanese family is watching a gold medal game of table tennis at home on July 26th. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi)

This year, the Asia-Pacific region gave the Tokyo Games the highest ratings, while the number of spectators fell in the West. “We can say that Asia shows strong audience figures in early-stage indicators,” an IOC spokeswoman told Nikkei Asia.

Nine out of ten Japanese watched some of the Olympics, according to the IOC, and the opening ceremony was watched six times more in India than in 2016. The men’s 100m final and both table tennis finals were the most watched sports broadcasts in China after the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The audience tunes in to sporting events when their athletes are doing well, and Asian athletes brought home 204 medals. Japan, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong and the Philippines all broke their previous medal records.

The rush for the medal is due in part to geographical advantage, said Tadao Isaka, a professor of sports science at Ritsumeikan University. Athletes are likely to be more successful in their home region because they need less adaptation to time differences and climate.

While home benefits play some role, public sports spending has risen in Asia. With the exception of Brunei, the only other Asian countries that have not won any Olympic medals are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar — all low-income countries.

Although it was still a developing country in 1984, China sent more than 200 athletes to Los Angeles, where they won 32 medals. As excellence in international sports brought appreciation, China made early investments in a state-funded national sports program based on the Soviet model.

Unlike U.S. athletes who invent club or college sports, Chinese children with elite potential live, study, and train in specialized sports, such as at Li Xiaoshuang Gymnastics School in Hubei Province.

Although academies have been criticized for harsh treatment of children, a product from Li Xiaoshung School, Guan Chenchen, 16, won gold in the Tokyo Horizontal Bar and defeated his hero Simone Biles.

In men’s gymnastics, Daiki Hashimoto continued Japan’s winning streak by taking gold in a horizontal bar and multi-events. Hashimoto wore the cloak of Rio 2016 champion Kohei Uchimura, a four-time Olympian.

Japanese Daiki Hashimoto reacted by performing in a horizontal bar on July 28th. © Reuters

In countries in Southeast Asia, which have tighter resources than East Asia, the strategy for these games has been to focus on special events. Three of the Philippines ’four medals this year came from boxing, one of the country’s most popular sports.

Indonesia’s success in badminton, which has delivered all of the country’s last eight gold medals, has attracted large sponsors such as state lender Bank Negara Indonesia to supplement the state’s limited support. The Indonesian Olympic Committee received only 32 billion rupees ($ 2.23 million) from the government to send 28 athletes to Tokyo, including 10 badminton players.

Some athletes managed to rank high in a sport not considered a country specialty, such as Carlos Yulo of the Philippines, who finished fourth in the men’s gymnastic flask. Yulo received a grant from the Olympic Solidarity Fund, which pays for training as well as entry and travel expenses to international competitions and elite training camps.

For the Tokyo Games, Asian sports programs received more than $ 8 million in Olympic solidarity funding paid by the IOC. More than 400 Asian athletes like Yulu received a scholarship.

“Various Asian federations may have applied for additional funding in view of‘ Japan is in our region, so we are trying to get more athletes to qualify, ’” said Heather Dichter, a sports historian at the University of De Montfort in Leicester, England.

Chinese Su Bingtian celebrated after winning the men’s 100m semi-final at the Olympic Stadium on August 1st. He was the first Chinese athlete to reach the blue riband final. © Reuters

Part of the solidarity funding will help the National Olympic Committees to improve their governance. Despite such grants from the IOC, most Asian bodies have not yet found a sustainable way to fund national sports.

“Are we funding elite sports to get medals, or are we funding grassroots sports to have more athletes?” Dichter said of the National Olympic Committees, which depend on a tight government budget.

Yet, when a country’s athletes succeed in the Olympics, politicians typically combine their victories to evoke nationalist sentiments. The rumble of the medals is music to the ears of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, whose approval rating will be lowered before the elections this autumn.

When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accused weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz of involvement in the coup plan, he tried to fix the real ones after Diaz won the country’s first Olympic gold. Within two weeks of his victory, Diaz has made requests to support the party or candidate in the May 2022 presidential election.

Filipino Hidilyn Diaz won gold in the women’s 55kg weightlifting class on July 26th. © Reuters

As Asia’s representation grows in the Olympic hall, a nominally non-political IOC may find it difficult to stay out of the region’s geopolitics. And a lot of it has to do with the next Olympic host: China.

Taiwanese duo Wang Chi-lin and Lee Yang made a coup in Tokyo when they won a Chinese pair in the men’s badminton final. Wang and Lee dedicated their medals to Taiwan instead of “Chinese Taipei,” as the team has been known for the past four decades.

After it became an independent state, “China stayed away from several federations because Taiwan was a member,” Dichter said. “China’s growing power as a member made Taiwan call it what it is now.”

A record number of 12 medals from the “Chinese Taipei” event confirmed the demands for self-government on the island as an independent state. On social media, Taiwanese condemned the “worthlessness” of treatment on an equal footing with Russia, whose flag and anthem were banned at the Olympics for state-sponsored doping.

Taiwanese Lee Yang and Taiwanese Wang Chi-Lin reacted after winning a gold medal match against Chinese Li Junhu and Chinese Liu Yuchen 31. July. © Reuters

Prior to the opening of the Games, the IOC ordered the South Korean delegation to remove banners reminiscent of Japanese war-era aggression from their Olympic village facilities. And even before the Tokyo Games ended, IOC President Thomas Bach skipped press questions about China’s alleged human rights abuses in the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday that President Xi Jinping said: “In a country with little chance of participating in the Olympics, China is home to athletes who thrive in many sports. This is a clear indication of China’s development and national strength.”

In 2015, when they awarded Beijing the 2022 Winter Olympics, “the IOC didn’t know what they were going to do,” said Michael Holtzman, a marketing strategist who helped secure Beijing’s 2008 offer.

As security and territorial disputes in the region escalate, the danger increases that the United States will boycott the Olympics again, as it did at the 1980 Moscow Games. What’s worse for broadcasters, U.S. viewers may choose not to watch the Olympics in China.

“Fragmentation is the enemy of Olympism as a movement and business model,” Holtzman said, referring to the growing tendency of viewers to tune only to their favorite country, sport or athlete.

He added: “The situation may worsen in Beijing depending on how victorious or adaptive China will be.”

Additional reporting by Erwida Maulia in Jakarta.