Introduction

DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

When Jacques Rogge perched against a white rostrum, slowly opened an envelope and announced Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, few could have anticipated the chaos which was to come.

Confirmation of the Japanese victory by the former International Olympic Committee President was the cue for scenes of jubilation at the Buenos Aires Hilton.

It was vindication for Tokyo’s pitch to host the 2020 Games as a symbol of recovery, following the devastation of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.

Shinzō Abe, then the Japanese Prime Minister, had flown in personally to ease the fears of IOC members who were jittery about the nuclear power plant in Fukushima which melted down during the natural disaster.

Abe settled their anxiety and was rewarded with a prize that would give a largely excited population something to aim for as the country worked to rebuild.

That was how it was supposed to be, at least.

For those in the Tokyo 2020 delegation, that winning day in the Argentine capital back in 2013 must feel like another lifetime ago.

Some must surely wish they could go back to the celebrations in the Hilton bar that evening, in the hope events would take a different course.

Tokyo 2020 could still be a Games of recovery but for a very different reason. We are, of course, poised for the Olympics and Paralympics a full year later than we should have been because of the coronavirus pandemic.

When the Games were delayed in March 2020, the sporting world crossed its fingers and believed that things would be back to normal in 16 months’ time.

It is true that COVID-19 is not devastating large parts of the globe as it once was, but in certain areas the virus is still rampant and the increasing rollout of vaccines has not been able to subdue it yet.

Tokyo 2020 will go ahead against a backdrop of noisy opposition in Japan, from a public understandably scared that the influx of thousands of foreign visitors will push back the country’s fight against the pandemic.

The IOC has desperately tried to calm fears but for many these words will fall on deaf ears.

When the sport starts, everyone in Japan - athletes, officials, media and others - will have to accept that in the eyes of plenty of locals they will not be welcome.

Before the pandemic took hold, Tokyo 2020 was already battling against allegations of corruption, suspicious payments and vote-buying - all connected to the ballot in Buenos Aires.

Wrongdoing has been repeatedly denied but the claims could not be more serious. If it was not for the unprecedented delay of the Olympics by a year, and all the spin-off stories this has created, then the alleged dark dealings would surely be much more of a distraction.

In this latest edition of The insidethegames. biz Magazine, we look ahead to Tokyo 2020 with the Games now finally upon us.

I tell the story of the rocky road organisers have faced, as the dream of Buenos Aires quickly turned into a COVID-fuelled nightmare.

Chief feature writer Mike Rowbottom asks how athletes have geared up for these Games, with their usual preparations flipped upside down by months of uncertainty.

Marnie McBean, the Canadian Chef de Mission, has compared the build-up to a “roller-coaster” and that certainly seems like an apt description.

Each sport has faced its own challenges leading into Tokyo, so we have spoken to the Presidents of the existing 28 International Federations on the Olympic programme to hear their thoughts before a Games which will be like no other.

The 28 will be joined in Japan by five additional sports - baseball/softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing.

Junior reporter Michael Houston runs the rule over the new recruits, which will take to the grandest stage in far different circumstances than they were expecting.

Tokyo 2020 will utilise a number of venues but the action will take place in front of far fewer people than originally anticipated.

Senior reporter Michael Pavitt takes us through where Olympians and Paralympians will be going for gold over the coming weeks.

The Japanese capital has hosted the Olympics before and strong parallels can be drawn from the 1964 Games.

Back then, recovery was also a theme as the hosts aimed to bounce back from the international isolationism caused by the Second World War.

Philip Barker delves into the history books to tell the story of an event which took place in a very different Japan.

Staff at the International Paralympic Committee will be hoping that Japan changes again after Tokyo 2020 has been and gone.

This year’s Paralympics are seen as a key chance to alter the perception of people with disabilities for the better, and leave a lasting legacy.

Senior reporter Geoff Berkeley reports on a goal which is more important than any found on the field of play.

At the end of the Olympics, Kirsty Coventry’s term as chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission will come to a close, but the Zimbabwean swimmer’s spell in sports governance will be far from over.

Chief senior reporter Liam Morgan talks to the two-time Olympic gold medallist who many have tipped for big things at the IOC - including a possible bid for the very top job.

These articles have again been produced by our award-winning team, who will provide unrivalled coverage of Tokyo 2020.

Once the Games are finally in the history books, we will continue to cover the most important sports stories which matter the most.

Enjoy the magazine.

We hope to see you again soon

Duncan Mackay

Editor

THE “SAFE” PAIR OF HANDS

Tokyo 2020 was supposed to be a beacon of hope after the tragedy of natural disaster in Japan but a rocky road to recovery has seen that dream turn into a nightmare. Duncan Mackay tells the story of a cursed project.

The joy that erupted in Tokyo on September 7 in 2013 when it was announced more than 11,000 miles away that the Japanese capital had won its bid to host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games has long since evaporated.

With opinion polls consistently demonstrating that the public do not want Tokyo hosting the Olympics as the country struggles to recover from the impact of COVID-19, amid fears that inviting 11,500 athletes from more than 200 countries will cause a “super spreader” event, it is easy to forget that these were supposed to be “The Recovery Games” even before the pandemic.

Japan sits in one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world. Located along an extremely active segment of the “Ring of Fire”, it is rocked by more than 1,500 earthquakes a year.

Anyone who has been to Japan regularly will probably have experienced the terror of receiving an alert on their mobile phone, followed a few moments later by the walls of the building they are in shaking.

Most earthquakes last only a few seconds and everyone seems to quickly return to what they are doing.

But, on March 11 in 2011, the Pacific Plate jerked downward and the North American Plate clicked upward. The Richter scale gave it a 9.1 - a jolt big enough to tilt the earth's axis. Honshu, Japan's main island, grew by three feet in an hour.

The United States Geological Survey estimated that the shifting plates released enough energy to power Los Angeles for a year.

What would become known as the Great East Japanese Earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit the unprepared TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant located only 140 miles north of Tokyo. The ensuing mayhem caused more than 20,000 deaths and displaced 164,000 to 185,000 people.

Only four months later it was announced that Tokyo would bid again for the Olympic and Paralympic Games having unsuccessfully tried to stage the 2016 event which was awarded to Rio de Janeiro.

“We have a responsibility and an obligation to meet the expectations placed upon us,” Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda claimed. “We must bring the Olympics back to Japan.”

How the Olympics could help Japan recover from the disaster quickly became the central storyline of the bid campaign, even as scientists warned it would be years before the contaminated area would be fully safe from radiation.

DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

Tokyo hoped to use the Olympics to rebuild after the tragedy of

the Great East Japan Earthquake. Photo: Getty Images

Tokyo’s candidature file made it clear they believed staging the Olympics was just the kind of boost the Japanese public wanted after the earthquake.

“The earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 deeply affected the Japanese people, and we are in need of a dream we can share that will strengthen our solidarity,” then Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose wrote. “A dream can give us strength, and with strength we can build a future.”

Takeda doubled down on that message in a letter accompanying the candidature file. “Over many years, Japan has understood the unique power of sport and witnessed its ability to inspire and unite,” he wrote. “Today, when thousands in the north-east of our country continue to recover from the disaster of March 2011, we understand that power even more.”

There is nothing that excites the International Olympic Committee more than the prospect of putting the Games at the centre of a country’s hopes and ambitions.

Tokyo had last staged the Olympic Games in 1964 when it helped Japan rise from the ashes of World War Two. Now, more than half a century later, the Olympics could be Japan’s saviour again.

The capital beat rivals Madrid and Istanbul by pitching its bid as “a safe pair of hands” for the IOC, after a two-round vote in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.

Istanbul was defeated by 60 votes to 36 in round two after Tokyo narrowly failed to secure enough votes to win at the first time of asking.

Even with Japan dogged by radiation concerns, the country was still considered a safer option than Spain, which was in economic crisis, and Turkey, a nation grappling with street demonstrations and increasing problems with its neighbours next door.

The IOC heeded assurances by Shinzō Abe, then Japan’s Prime Minister, who addressed the meeting. He said the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant was “under control” and “has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo”.

Istanbul had delivered an ambitious proposal in which it pitched itself as a “historic choice”.

It would have been the first Olympics in a predominantly Muslim nation, in a city that straddles two continents. But its bid lost its initial momentum after the Taksim Square protests, with doping scandals and the spectre of war in neighbouring Syria also dampening enthusiasm.

After the vote, IOC members filed out of the hall at the Hilton Hotel complex to explain they had made a smart and safe choice rather than taking a risk.

“The certainty was the critical factor,” said Sir Craig Reedie, the Briton who had chaired the IOC's Evaluation Commission which had inspected the bids. “The Prime Minister dealt with the one big issue.”

Jacques Rogge, whose announcement of Tokyo as the host city for 2020 was his final major act before the end of his 12-year term as IOC President, said Japan prevailed because of the high quality of its bid and because of the experience of the team which went through the same process four years earlier.

“Tokyo has described itself as a safe pair of hands,” Rogge said. “As a surgeon, that is something that appeals to me.”

Hasan Arat, chairman of Istanbul's bid, compared the outcome to sport. “This is competition, and you have to respect the results,” he said outside the conference hall.

Later, while watching some of the Japanese team celebrating in the hotel bar, Arat told me: “One day you will find out how Tokyo really won. It is not the story people think it is.” More of that later.

In Tokyo, where the announcement came in around 5am, cheers erupted from crowds gathered before dawn at public viewing venues.

About 2,000 people had crowded into the gymnasium where Japan's women's volleyball team famously rallied the nation with a surprise gold medal at Tokyo 1964.

The one year delay to Tokyo 2020 is highlighted on the Tokyo

Skytree, a Games sponsor. Photo: Getty Images

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DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

To some, the announcement seemed no less surprising, even if Tokyo had been regarded as the overwhelming favourite. “I thought Tokyo had a slim chance because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster,” said Shingo Hayashi, a businessman among the celebrants in the gymnasium.

Unlike in other nations, there was no discernible and organised opposition, and indeed there was widespread enthusiasm. This was in contrast to Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Games, which was undermined by domestic scepticism.

Polls in 2009 showed that slightly more than 50 per cent of Tokyo residents wanted the Games, compared with some surveys before the 2013 vote which showed more than 90 per cent.

Abe, who took power nine months before the vote, had also linked Japan’s bid to his efforts to stimulate the country’s economy. “I want to make the Olympics a trigger for sweeping away 15 years of deflation and economic shrinkage,” he said after Tokyo’s victory.

In their pitch, Tokyo officials emphasised financial stability by saying there was already a $4.5 billion reserve fund. This was despite public debt worth more than twice the size of the economy, the highest ratio in the developed world. With an estimated total budget of $7.4 billion, Tokyo's Games would also be one of the cheapest in recent memory, undercutting Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, it was promised.

Of course, even before COVID-19 hit and forced the IOC to postpone the Olympics by a year until 2021, those budget estimates looked fanciful. Shortly after winning its bid, Tokyo 2020 redrew its budget and came up with a new figure of $12.6 billion. Then, a study released last year by the University of Oxford revealed this budget too had increased significantly.

The study estimated that Tokyo’s spending stood at that point at $15.84 billion. This figure was already more than the amount spent on London 2012, which at $15 billion was the costliest Summer Olympics on record. The amount was actually probably higher because, as author of the report Bent Flyvbjerg explained, they had only included costs they could confirm.

“Our estimates are conservative because there are lots of costs that are hidden that we can’t get into,” he said. “And there are lots of costs we decided not to include because it’s too complex.

“We include the things we can get the most reliable numbers for and we do it in the same way for each city that we study.”

Tokyo 2020 officially announced last December that the cost of the Games would be $15.4 billion. “The Tokyo Olympics are operating in a very tough environment,” Toshirō Mutō, the chief executive of the Organising Committee, said when asked about the record bill.

A drive to recover some of the rising spending by coaxing more revenue from domestic sponsors was launched. About 70 sponsors had already contributed a record $3.3 billion, driven by Dentsu Inc, the marketing agent for Tokyo 2020.

It has been widely reported that 15 top-tier domestic sponsors, including Japan Airlines, ANA and the Tokyo Skytree, have

Rising COVID-19 cases has led to increased opposition to the Games in Japan. Photo: Getty Images

The Tokyo 2020 Torch Relay has been a subdued affair with the usual crowds of people absent. Photo: Getty Images

added an estimated $150 million to their contributions. But this was offset by the loss of ticket revenue after overseas fans were banned.

The announcement of the increased budget seems to have been the catalyst for the growing opposition to Japan staging the Games. In a telephone poll of 1,200 people published by Japanese broadcaster NHK in December, 63 per cent said the Olympics should be postponed again or cancelled altogether, and only 27 per cent said the Games should be held.

Since then, some polls have found opposition to be as high as 83 per cent. The dissent consistently hovered around 70 per cent until a survey published at the beginning of June showed half of Japanese people believed the Games should go ahead. That poll coincided with the number of coronavirus cases declining and the pressure on Japanese hospitals beginning to ease.

The Japanese Government has tried to claim that, since COVID-19, “The Recovery Games” have taken on a second meaning.

Japan has escaped the coronavirus crisis better than many countries. At the time of writing, the country had suffered just over 780,000 infections and fewer than 15,000 deaths. But the Government still extended a state of emergency less than two months before the Olympic Opening Ceremony date of July 23.

An estimated 80,000 officials, journalists and support staff, in addition to the athletes, are expected to jet into Tokyo for the Games.

That is about half the number expected before the coronavirus pandemic forced the Games’ postponement last year, and comes after organisers asked National Olympic Committees and International Federations to reduce the size of their delegations.

Mutō has promised the figure will be kept below 90,000 and could be cut further. But medical professionals have raised concerns that hosting thousands of athletes and officials from around the world during a pandemic could lead to the emergence of a new “Olympic” variant of the virus.

Shigeru Omi, an infectious disease expert who heads the Japanese Government Subcommittee on the coronavirus, claimed it was “not normal” to hold the event under such conditions.

JOC Board member Kaori Yamaguchi, an Olympic judo bronze medallist at Seoul 1988, added to the rancour when she said in an opinion piece that her nation had been “cornered” into pressing ahead with the Games, amid the public opposition.

Even the Torch Relay, which so often in the past has provided the momentum to really grow public enthusiasm for the Olympics - particularly before Sydney 2000 and London 2012 - has become a journey of fear in Japan.

In line with its original concept of helping the country recover from the earthquake, the Relay started its journey around Japan in Fukushima in March 2021 - a year later than planned. It was billed as a “bright light for hope” but the initial ceremony took place behind closed doors. When it did make it to local roads, spectators were sparse and those who did turn up were warned to wear face coverings and not cheer.

During its tour, legs of the Torch Relay have had to be cancelled, re-routed or held on closed roads because of fears it could help spread the virus. When it visited Hiroshima, which should have been a symbolic leg after the city was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945, it was held on private grounds with no spectators and was a truncated event. IOC President Thomas Bach cancelled his planned trip to attend.

It is easy to understand why, to a large majority of Japanese, foreign visitors to their country must feel more like an invading army who present a threat rather than something to be welcomed.

Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun has reported that out of 1,649 foreign nationals connected with the Olympics who entered Japan since the beginning of April, 1,432 were exempted from quarantine.

This included 24 visitors from India, with 14 receiving quarantine exemptions. As it stands, Japanese citizens living outside the country, or spouses of local residents, require special dispensation to return and, even then, must quarantine for two weeks.

Asahi Shimbun is a Tokyo 2020 sponsor but has been at the forefront of calls for the Games to be called off, including writing an editorial urging their cancellation.

While all athletes have been offered

DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

vaccines following an agreement between the IOC and Pfizer-BioNTech, less than five per cent of Japan’s 126 million people had received at least one shot by June - the lowest rate among major economies. In addition, less than 30 per cent of medical workers in Tokyo had been fully vaccinated.

Many people attending the Olympics will have been vaccinated and the IOC insists that contact between those involved in the Games and the rest of the population will be restricted, but it cannot be avoided altogether.

There will still be catering staff, cleaners and bus drivers needed to make the Games happen, meaning that COVID-19 could easily pass from the Olympic bubble into Japanese society.

The one thing that we have learned about this virus is the speed at which it can spread with some people not showing any symptoms.

Some experts in Japan, though, have warned cancelling the Olympics could potentially cost the country more than the danger of a new surge in coronavirus cases which could be caused by hosting them.

The Nomura Research Institute, a Japanese think tank, estimated that cancelling the Olympics and Paralympics this summer would cost Japan $16.5 billion. Even a new wave of infections and a fresh state of emergency triggered by the Games would cause less economic damage than cancelling the event outright, the Institute said.

Those involved in the successful bid must now be wondering if the lengths they went to while working to win the Games were worth it.

For we now know that, running in parallel with the high-profile worldwide campaign to convince the IOC to vote for Tokyo 2020, there was a much more secret plan that needed to avoid becoming publicly known at all costs.

It emerged in 2016 that Black Tidings Co, a now-defunct consulting firm based in Singapore, had received a total of $2 million from the Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee which was paid into a bank account in the city state in July and October 2013.

According to documents, by January 2014 the Singapore firm had wired more than $150,000 to the personal account of Papa Massata Diack, whose father Lamine Diack was a member of the IOC and said to have influence over African votes at the time of the Tokyo 2020 decision.

Lamine Diack was later sentenced to two years in prison in France and fined €500,000 after being found guilty of taking bribes related to the cover-up of Russian doping.

The money transferred by Tokyo 2020 included $35,000 paid to Papa Massata's account with a Russian bank in August and November 2013. The firm also made four money transfers totalling $217,000 to his company, PMD Consulting Sarl, from November to December 2013.

The transfers were discovered in a joint review by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, as well as news outlets including BuzzFeed News, Asahi Shimbun, and Radio France, of a set of leaked reports of suspicious financial activity kept by the United States Treasury Department and French authorities.

The documents included what the consortium identified as files submitted by financial institutions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, which is tasked with combating money laundering and safeguarding the financial system from illicit use.

Papa Massata has claimed the money he received was related to a “sponsorship deal made in China”.

“There is nothing to do with the Tokyo Olympics,” he said, although no-one believes him.

Takeda - the JOC President who led the Tokyo 2020 bid and, remember, said it was his “responsibility and an obligation” to bring the Olympic Games back to Japan - denied any knowledge of the money transfers from Black Tidings at the time of the bid.

“At the time, I did not know anything that happened after [making the payment to the consulting firm],” he said.

But Takeda, a former Olympic equestrian, stepped down as head of the JOC and resigned as a member of the IOC in June 2019, after French authorities confirmed earlier in the year they had started an official investigation into alleged corruption during Tokyo's bid.

The scandal has largely been brushed under the carpet following the pandemic, but it all contributes to the belief that these Olympic and Paralympic Games cannot be over soon enough for everyone involved in them.

By the time the Paralympic Games close on September 5, it will have been more than 10 years since the idea of Tokyo 2020 was conceived in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

By then, “The Recovery Games” will not be remembered as the event that boosted the Japanese public’s morale but simply with relief that they are finally over.

Tsunekazu Takeda resigned from his roles following allegations

of corruption. Photo: Getty Images