Tokyo 2020, to be held in 2021, will have been the most atypical and complicated Summer Olympics of the modern era. Until the last moment it was not clear whether they would be held. And until they are over we will not be able to claim victory on whether they have really beaten the covid. Because there is no hiding the fact that the danger of contagion is high. Athletes are used to fighting against their limits and against their rivals, but how do you compete against a virus? Well, they are doing it. The main way to compete against the coronavirus is to get vaccinated and to take extreme precautions. The challenge for young athletes from all over the world this time is twofold: they have to demonstrate their skills in each of their sports and they have to be an example, before the world, of prudence and sanitary rigour in order to avoid contagion.
In the midst of an organisation that will suffer until the last moment the pressure of the pandemic, the most global sporting event has started in Japan surrounded by both controversy and hope. Not holding the Games, beyond the economic consequences it would have had for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), for the big television corporations, for the big global brands involved in sponsorship and for Japan as a whole, would have been seen as a global defeat in the face of the pandemic. The debate between health prudence and the need for life to continue has not been easy. Nor has the solution to move the competition forward: in the midst of a worldwide resurgence of the virus due to the delta variant, in the end it has been done done without an audience. The isolation measures for athletes, journalists and organisers have had to be taken to the extreme. And yet no one can be sure that it will be successful. The world's medical and scientific community is worried.
There will undoubtedly be a before and after the Tokyo Games, which will be more televised than ever. In the wake of the pandemic, mass sport is also reinventing itself by leaps and bounds. Empty stadiums are no longer a surprise. The business will have to rethink itself. Just as we keep saying that the post-Covid world will not be like it was before, neither will sport, including Olympic sport. In Barcelona and Catalonia we can already take note when it comes to conceiving the bid for the 2030 Winter Games. What should be maintained and reinforced is the Olympic spirit, which is not (or should not be) about flags and should not be subordinated to an unsustainable business model - in terms of climate and infrastructures that have to make sense - and with suspicions of corruption, but should be based on sport understood as a universal language that brings people and nations together, that is increasingly a showcase for gender equality and that gives all its value to the desire for individual and collective self-improvement.
Certainly, the world is not in the mood for celebrations and parties, and yet the Tokyo Games, which half the world will be enjoying again from home, are a sign that we will somehow make it through, combining the essential health precautions with the usual enthusiasm of the sportsmen and women.
