Times report: Japanese government has "privately concluded" that the 2021 Olympics will have to be cancelled

Jimmio wrote:

rojo wrote:

IOC its tv money.

That is fine. There is nothing “defeatist “about my attitude. Is it “defeatist” to acknowledge that the Olympics are not that important in the scheme of things? Not at all. This is where you lose me. You label another viewpoint defeatist when it is actually a victorious attitude. Human lives are more important than the Olympics. That is “defeatist” to you.

Not sure if this satire or not.

Reality is this summer new cases will have naturally dramatically decreased due to weather, greater natural immunity, and the vaccinations.

Excess vaccine will be available, and the elderly, even in Japan, will have been vaccinated so deaths will be even more dramatically reduced.

The young dont die, in a few months it will be clear that its time to move forward.

Wise decision by the Japanese. There is a possibility that the current vaccines will be rendered useless by the new COVID variants. By the time the Olympics are scheduled to be held in July and August, the world could be facing a situation with no clinical tools available to combat different mutated versions of COVID.

gotta do it wrote:

Jimmio wrote:

That is fine. There is nothing “defeatist “about my attitude. Is it “defeatist” to acknowledge that the Olympics are not that important in the scheme of things? Not at all. This is where you lose me. You label another viewpoint defeatist when it is actually a victorious attitude. Human lives are more important than the Olympics. That is “defeatist” to you.

Not sure if this satire or not.

Reality is this summer new cases will have naturally dramatically decreased due to weather, greater natural immunity, and the vaccinations.

Excess vaccine will be available, and the elderly, even in Japan, will have been vaccinated so deaths will be even more dramatically reduced.

The young dont die, in a few months it will be clear that its time to move forward.

It is astounding that crystal balls have become so ubiquitous. Your clairvoyance is impressive if only it were concomitant with a semblance of reality. You do not even know what impact vaccination would have on new strains of this virus. Please check yourself before you sound like a former President of the U.S. confidently proclaiming the virus would be extinguished in the U.S. by Easter (2020).

Sham 69 wrote:

2 million out of 7.5 billion have died from COVID. Big deal... Big sham.

Will someone get rid of this juvenile idiot? Son, your ignorance will follow you so no need to plaster it everywhere.

insider information: no, Olympics are not cancelled. They will potentially be cancelled, but they are not at the moment. Chances of it happening are still +50%.

this was planned to test the overall reaction of what is now a potential cancellation.

will public support come back?

will there be pieces of positiveness in the media claiming for the Olympics to happen?

of course there are ways in which the Olympics could happen. This doesn't matter at the moment.

in the end this is now a question of money and brand management.

the scenarios are complex and tricky.

If the Games were tomorrow, they would be cancelled. In one month? They would have already been cancelled. In three, still no way for the Games to happen. In six months as we are now - it gets very tricky to know. Even more problematic is the fact that the decision will need to be made very, very soon.

the owner of this website makes some very simplistic assumptions, of "just vaccinate everyone and we'll be fine" - I can assure you venues will not be full and 99% chances foreigners will not be in Tokyo - not in the traditional way at least.

It is way more than just answering the question: "can Olympic happen?". It is more a question of: "is it worthy it to host Olympics even if we can?". And for worthy, don't think of Athletes, fans, etc. This is now a matter of brand management. IOC Brand. Japan as a brand. And yes, the rings. Olympics in itself.

Money and Brand Management. These are the key decision factors to the IOC and Japanese Government. Behind the scenes the Athletes are not as important as you will often read officials quoting.

in one side of the scale you have what the IOC and Japan are hoping for: the Games uniting the world together, extraordinaty audience and money. Think about the opportunity, despite all obvious problems, that this whole global pandemic brings to Olympics - Tokyo has now the potential to beat all the records and be the Olympic of the century, the one everyone will remember, the one that truly goes beyond sports and reaches virtually every person on earth.

this is one side of the scale.

the other is what is potentially the IOC destroying its brand and that of the Olympics, which is its most valuable asset.

because yes, you could potentially have a tragical event, where no one cares, the whole world blames the IOC for hosting the event in the midst of a pandemic with record breaking costs; spikes of cases around Japan; the image of sponsors damaged, and honestly, quite possibly the end of Olympics as we know it - if the IOC and Japan decide to host the event and it all goes wrong.

then, in the middle of the scale, you have what is now a "conservative" option. Cancel it. Yes, it is a big hit. But the IOC can recover from that. Japan can recover from that - and potentially get the 2032 Games straight away. Most of the world would be quite understanding. "It was probably the right thing to do" - the world will say.

On the long run, it would be like the WWII cancelled Olympic Games .

Would you take the risk?

IOC is a very old fashioned Swiss based organisation. It doesn't like running risks.

I don't think Japanese government does it either.

Worst case scenario is to host the Games and it all goes wrong.

Would you take the risk?

They probably will but only if in 30 days or so the situation gets much better than what it is now -

media will play a big part on it as well as the Japanese public support.

Right now the risk is too high.

If a decision was needed to be taken tomorrow (it doesn't) the Games would be cancelled. This is how these news should be read.

If you want Olympics to happen - pray for things to get better in the next 30 days - countries getting vaccines, media pieces supporting Olympics to happen, increase in Japanese public support, etc.

Jimmio wrote:

A fair question for you Rojo: would you be willing to give up your father’s life if it meant the Olympics would happen this year? What about Wejo’s life? Just trying to get a read on your values here.

No. Not at all. I tell my dad not to go out but he's tired of living like a hermit. He's probably only got a few good years left so he's doing things as responsibly as he can. He went on a bus trip with about 15 other seniors. They all got tested before the trip but it certainly wasn't risk-free.

They're denying it now. Thank the Lord. You know, if it weren't for NBC and baseball, couldn't they move it to October, when the weather will be decent? That's when they were held the last time a summer Olympics was in Tokyo. Can't they work the World Series around the Olympics, or just have the Olympics be on streaming live rather than a tidy primetime package?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-government-idUSKBN29R0BB?taid=600a4339e8fa030001a3c7b0&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

I don't see how it wont take place, even without spectators. By June there should not be any problem with vaccinating athletes and officials, not to mention most of Tokyo should be vaccinated by then. If the vaccines aren't working because of virus mutations, then we're looking at no Olympics or return to any form of normality for years.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/othersport/arid-40211822.html

Jimmio wrote:

A fair question for you Rojo: would you be willing to give up your father’s life if it meant the Olympics would happen this year? What about Wejo’s life? Just trying to get a read on your values here.

That's not a fair question, it's trying to win an argument by emotional blackmail. It's assuming that holding the Olympics this year will result in a substantial loss of life, which is not known.

Btw, do you consider what the devastating impact on African athletics will be if the Olympics are scrapped and we don't get back to normal calendars for years? Or is that just not important to you in the grand scheme of things?

Jimmio wrote:

The Olympics are not that important in the scheme of things. The Japanese understand this.

They really are important actually. Having things to look forward to is what life is about. Life is not about simply existing which is what our government has forced us to do for absolutely zero reason the past year. It blows my mind that people still haven’t figured out that all you have to do is stay away from old/unhealthy people and the rest of us can live normally. It’s not my responsibility to care if some idiot goes and hangs out with their 90 year old grandma and she dies.

Jimmio wrote:

A fair question for you Rojo: would you be willing to give up your father’s life if it meant the Olympics would happen this year? What about Wejo’s life? Just trying to get a read on your values here.

How stupid are you? Why would wejo die? What is preventing his father from not going into stores other than to get essentials while wearing a mask?

People like you making these false choices is infuriating and shows how unintelligent you are.

Coevett wrote:

I don't see how it wont take place, even without spectators. By June there should not be any problem with vaccinating athletes and officials, not to mention most of Tokyo should be vaccinated by then. If the vaccines aren't working because of virus mutations, then we're looking at no Olympics or return to any form of normality for years.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/othersport/arid-40211822.html

Mostly this.

Let's take a deep breath and see what happens next few months as vaccinations progresses.

Easy to be pessimistic when daily deaths are at their peak, but serious amounts of vaccines are currently being produced and a few more are litterarly around the corner.

If virus somehow mutates to the point where it renders the current vaccines ineffective, olympics are very much not important, as it wasn't last year, but no reason to think we're anywhere near that yet...

It will ultimately come down to how the current race between the variants goes versus vaccination efforts. There is a lot of time between now and the Olympics. If countries really ramp up vaccination efforts in a big way, we could see COVID rates come down dramatically by late spring. But if there are big surges through the spring due to the proliferation of the UK variant or other more contagious variants, it would be absolutely reckless to have the games. It would just be a chance to spread new variants all around the world. You could not have a worse idea during a pandemic with dangerous mutations taking place.

Of course, there is absolutely a way to have a safe Olympic games, but it is too expensive and would necessarily take Tokyo out of the spotlight. You could shift the games to multiple locations around the world where there is sufficient infrastructure to be able to bubble the athletes, coaches etc. from the general population. No spectators. No Olympic village.

You would just pick a venue that is very close to a hotel or college that has the ability to house and feed the athletes. Everyone would arrive 14 days in advance to quarantine and quarantine for 14 days upon arrival back home. You could get the games done with minimal risk of spreading COVID if you decentralized it and bubbled each sport up. But that would be too expensive.

briswiss wrote:

Jimmio wrote:

A fair question for you Rojo: would you be willing to give up your father’s life if it meant the Olympics would happen this year? What about Wejo’s life? Just trying to get a read on your values here.

How stupid are you? Why would wejo die? What is preventing his father from not going into stores other than to get essentials while wearing a mask?

People like you making these false choices is infuriating and shows how unintelligent you are.

You are not very bright. Of course you cannot help it so I know so should show mercy. The implication of my question to Rojo was that he thinks the Olympics should occur in Tokyo because he likely does not care about, or at least not enough to cancel the Olympics, people dying as a result of the pandemic and the chains of transmission which will be exacerbated by the Olympics. You obviously do not care about other people dying. This is why I asked about a family member because then maybe it resonates with some of you. You want your Olympics and you do not care about the repercussions. Because you do not care you minimize them as if they are trivial. Then you blame the elderly for being victims. Your true colors are awfully ugly.

briswiss wrote:

Jimmio wrote:

The Olympics are not that important in the scheme of things. The Japanese understand this.

They really are important actually. Having things to look forward to is what life is about. Life is not about simply existing which is what our government has forced us to do for absolutely zero reason the past year. It blows my mind that people still haven’t figured out that all you have to do is stay away from old/unhealthy people and the rest of us can live normally. It’s not my responsibility to care if some idiot goes and hangs out with their 90 year old grandma and she dies.

The lack of intelligence among you and your brethren is exactly why this pandemic has gotten so out of hand. Your ignorance is so alarming because you are in a race to see what kills you first, your ignorance or your arrogance, which at some level are inseparable.

The timing really sucks for the Olympics.

I don't get the point of reactionary ignorance like yours. The report has been categorically denied.

Jimmio wrote:

The Olympics are not that important in the scheme of things. The Japanese understand this.

Yeah, going to karaoke bars and pachinko parlors is far more important to most Japanese people. And of course, dining and wining in large groups. They will not give up that freedom for the sake of hosting the Olympics, which will last for only two weeks. If they cannot have street parties after each medal won by the locals, what's the point of hosting the Olympics? And if they cannot get any foreign spectators, tourist industry will not get anything. It's totally worthless.

How about this proposal to give the athletes a chance to compete:

You have each sport in a different "bubble" spread across the globe.

For instance, you could have swimming in the USA, track and field in Canada, soccer in Mexico, softball is Cuba, etc etc.

Yes it isn't the true Olympic experience but I think it would be much more manageable to have these smaller bubbles like the NBA and NHL successfully had this summer.

This is the best idea I've ever had.