(Tokyo) The Tokyo Summer Olympics survived a postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketing costs, as well as some public opposition. A year later, the costs, but above all the benefits obtained, remain as complicated to disentangle as these Olympic Games had difficulty in being launched.
Posted at 12:03 p.m.
In his speech at the closing ceremony, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, said that one of the main achievements of these Games was to be completed.
“We succeeded,” he said. We succeeded together,” he repeated, giving credit to the athletes, the Japanese government, as well as the generous broadcasters, who reinvented the Games due to the absence of spectators, disappointed sponsors and the lack atmosphere in the city.
The organizers had predicted that these Games would breathe new life into tourism, demonstrate all the technological prowess of the country and create memories similar to what the 1964 Games had created. The pandemic has made all of this impossible.
Japan’s goal after the postponement was to hold the Games, knowing that Beijing would host the winter ones six months later. For the IOC, the priority was that these Olympics be televised and to keep the most important sponsors happy, sources of 90% of the organization’s income.
“I think what we really wanted to avoid was to cancel the Games,” David Leheny, a political scientist at Waseda University, told The Associated Press. There was no health crisis associated with the Olympics. […] If Japan had canceled the Olympics, the media, especially the conservative media, would have had long discussions about what that failure would have meant. »
Before legally dissolving the organizing committee on June 30, its president, Seiko Hashimoto, and its chief executive, Toshiro Muto, declared that the official cost of these Summer Games amounted to 13 billion US, of which nearly 60 % come from public funds. This is double the original estimate when the IOC awarded the Olympics to the Japanese megalopolis, but less than the 25 billion that some have predicted.
How to judge them? Do these Games constitute a legacy or are they a costly aftermath? Are they a success or should the Japanese just rejoice that they have not failed?
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which paid 5.4 billion for these Olympics, is trying to persuade the public that half a dozen new sites will be used, including the whitewater canoe-kayak site, which will be the subject of of an official reopening next week.
A dedicated center for the LGBTQ community was sponsored during the Games and the Paralympics pushed Tokyo to improve accessibility generally across the city. The city government will mark the first anniversary of the opening ceremony on Saturday with an event held at the Olympic Stadium, built at a cost of $1.4 billion.
The Tokyo Games were meant to be the “Games of Recovery”, but there was little emphasis on this theme after the postponement. Leaders had promised before the postponement that the Games would focus on northeast Japan, devastated by an earthquake, tsunami and the meltdown of three nuclear reactors in 2011.
Japanese news agency Kyodo published a poll conducted by a government agency. Out of 4,000 respondents, 29.8% said they were grateful for the government’s reconstruction efforts. Many believe, however, that the holding of the Games has undermined the resources dedicated to these efforts.
“I have the impression that the Olympics have reached this period where people no longer want to talk about it, or even think about it,” said Aki Tonami, a political economist at the University of Tsukuba. All analyzes of what the Olympics represent are currently in a symbolic phase. We don’t yet have the ability to really dig in and identify their long-term significance. »
To Sapporo
Amid all this uncertainty, a legacy is clearly identifiable: despite scandals, inflated costs and lukewarm public support, Japan wants to secure the 20,230 Winter Games for Sapporo. And he wants to use the Tokyo Games to promote his candidacy.
Sapporo estimates the costs at 2.6 billion, certainly too low when we know that Tokyo cost twice the initial amount advanced. And it is currently impossible to estimate costs eight years in advance.
“We are already working on this file,” Hashimoto said last month. The importance of the Tokyo Games must be constantly reminded, otherwise people in Sapporo and Hokkaido will not support this bid. »
Sapporo is considered the favorite against bids from Vancouver and Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City leaders have hinted they could focus their efforts on the 2034 Olympics. The IOC is expected to name the host city in May 2023. Bach, in an interview with Kyodo, seemed to rule out the idea of naming the host cities of 2030 and 2034 in the same breath.
None of these three cities is required to obtain the approval of its citizens by referendum, a process that has consistently led to the abandonment of candidacies in recent years.
“Before, we didn’t ask ourselves whether bringing the Olympics to Japan was a good thing to do,” said Tonami. But I think the difference now is that people are starting to ask if it’s really the right thing to do. »