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Philip Barker Historian
Tokyo 2020 was always going to be a Games like no other. For the first time, essential kit for an Olympics included face masks, hand gel, an armful of vaccination certificates and a copy of the Olympic “playbook”. This was produced for Games stakeholders, including athletes, officials, broadcast rightsholders and other media. “Everybody in the Olympic Movement is equal,” IOC President Thomas Bach had claimed.
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Yet the ostensibly simple playbook hid many caveats and variations. Three days restricted to the hotel after arrival was the prescribed norm, followed by 11 days when agreed activities could be undertaken, provided only the dedicated official transport was used. Regulations carried a sting in the tail when it was revealed that someone on my flight had returned a positive COVID test. I was among those in a seat nearby who was identified as a close contact. Happily, insidethegames colleague Dan Palmer, sitting a few rows further back, was not identified in the same way. A terse email from the Japanese medical authorities stated: “We announce that you
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had close contact with a COVID patient on flight NH212 on July 13. “So, you have to be in quarantine for two weeks. And even if you get a negative result, still you have to be in quarantine for two weeks as a close contact.” The playbook had promised that “a decision on applicable measures will be made on a case-by-case basis and will take into consideration the likelihood of you spreading the virus”. It came as something of a surprise when Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto, questioned by insidethegames colleagues, claimed that her organisation had provided food for those in isolation. How she came by this information remains
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