In two days, one of the greatest spectacles in sports will return. I’m talking about the Summer Olympics, which will take place in Tokyo from July 23 through Aug. 7 after being delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As someone who swam growing up, I’ve always looked forward to seeing that sport and many others on that stage, especially since all the work in the four years between Olympics is usually overlooked.
Typically, the competition overshadows some of the thornier sides of the Olympics, but that’s harder to ignore in a year where COVID-19 still casts a large shadow over the games. Even in a normal year, the games are a tremendous financial burden, as host nations usually go over their projected costs. Since Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1984, none of the games had produced a surplus, burdening local populations for decades to come.
Not to mention the International Olympic Committee is corrupt, giving bids in recent years to authoritarian nations such as China and Russia, allowing them to flex their might on the world stage. In just seven months, Beijing, which hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, will host the Winter Olympics even as China has put more than 1 million Uighurs, an ethnic minority in the country, in internment camps.
With COVID-19, these issues are magnified. Tokyo is back in lockdown due to rising cases, and no fans will be allowed to attend Olympic events in the city. According to an Ipsos Global Advisor Poll from July 13, just 22 percent of Japanese residents think the games should even go on. As athletes have started to arrive in Tokyo, at least 67 athletes, officials and other workers involved in the game have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Washington Post. This means that for some athletes, even those that are vaccinations, one positive test can ruin a moment they’ve worked their whole life for.
It’s happened to three South African men’s soccer players, who tested positive on Monday, just three days before their Olympic opener against Japan. It also happened to U.S. gymnastics alternate Kara Eaker, who tested positive at the team’s training camp in Tokyo. Unlike other sports that have taken place over the past year, the Olympics can’t just delay the competition until athletes recover. It has to take place between July 23 and August 7. Right now, it feels like there’s a slow-ticking time bomb over the whole competition that will go off when a medal contender tests positive.
So who does want the Olympics to go on? That would be the IOC, NBC and other sponsors, who make massive investments in the quadrennial event. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Shell said at a conference in June that he expects it to be the most profitable Olympics in NBC’s history.
When looking at it from all angles, it’s a wonder the Olympics have lasted this long. But that’s where the competition itself comes in. In no other sporting event can you turn on the TV on a random weekday afternoon, find a sport you’ve never heard of and become entranced for hours. That’s the power of the Olympic brand and athletes, who have sacrificed and trained for four years for that one moment.
The Olympics are at their best when story combines with sport. One of my favorites from the Rio de Janeiro games was Maya DiRado, an American swimmer. DiRado graduated from Stanford in 2014, then delayed a job in Atlanta to train through the 2016 Olympics. She won a silver in the 400-meter individual medley, a bronze in the 200 IM and won gold in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team before her final event of the meet, the 200-meter backstroke.
DiRado qualified third for the final, swimming next to Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu. Besides Katie Ledecky, Hosszu was the best female swimmer in Rio. Nicknamed the “Iron Lady,” Hosszu dominated both the 200 and 400 IM, won the 100-meter backstroke and entered the 200 race as a heavy favorite.
The race fell into a familiar pattern over the first three laps. Hosszu sprinted out to the lead. DiRado would close the gap by the end of the lap, only for Hosszu to increase her lead off the turns. On the final 50, DiRado closed the gap and inched past Hosszu, winning gold by six one-hundredths of a second in her last race ever.
It’s stories like that why the Olympics will exist in some form. Because even with all the issues leading up to it, the athletes always seem to rise to and even transcend the moment.
Justin Fitzgerald is the sports writer for the Cherokee Scout. Reach him by phone, 837-5122, Ext. 18, or email sports@cherokeescout.com.