The Most Filthy Olympics Ever
Began with bribes, proceeded with greedy fantasies, and will end up with miserable facts
We have less than one hundred days until the Tokyo Olympics begins. Meanwhile the variant B117 is storming Osaka and has made the daily positives surpass 1000. Prime Minister Suga is insisting that the Games are still going on as scheduled and will never be cancelled, though only one percent of the population has received the vaccine.
I’d like to discuss not only whether the Games should go on or not but also what impacts the various events related to the Games have brought to Japanese society and people.
Bad seeds were sowen while we didn’t know and they have grown
Bad seeds have been sowen and they have grown evil weeds like these.
(*1)125TH IOC SESSION IN BUENOS AIRES
The culmination of the bid process was the meeting of the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires (Argentina). On 7 September 2013, the cities each had 45 minutes to give a presentation to the Session, followed by 15 minutes for questions. The cities presented in the order of drawing of lots, carried out by the IOC Executive Board in December 2011.
About the success of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic bid, it has been said that a man who was the former director of Dentsu, the biggest Japanese advertising company, secretly bought the African countries’ votes to beat Istanbul at the final round with support of the sports brokers. He admitted that he paid $8 million to the brokers.
(*2)TOKYO/PARIS (Reuters) - A businessman who received millions of dollars for his work on Tokyo’s successful campaign to host the 2020 Olympics, which was postponed last week due to the coronavirus, said he played a key role in securing the support of a former Olympics powerbroker suspected by French prosecutors of taking bribes to help Japan’s bid.
(*3)According to some reports, it has been said that Tsunekazu Takeda, the former JOC president, is also related to this bribery to some degree. The French Prosecutor’s office has probed, finished collecting evidences and has taken next steps, though Takeda denied the allegation.
In the presentation for the bid in the Buenos Aires session, the former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said that the (Fukushima Nuke plants’) situation is under control, but that was a lie.(*4) Junichiro Koizumi, another former Prime Minister, criticized that.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Paralympic Games which started with the bribery and the lie were ethically wrong, I can say.
Gaining profits from redevelopment of Tokyo central areas
is very old-fashioned
The 311 Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011 gave a serious impact to Japan and Japanese people. The central government and Tokyo Metropolitan Government have been urged that the civic function and the infrastructures of central Tokyo should be strengthened for every natural disaster. I think that was right but the redeveloping plan should have been considered from more various perspectives. For example, they should have thought about how to encourage people living in big cities to move into rural areas to avoid dense population in big cities, and the Internet connections should have been more improved as an infrastructure. At least the fax machines should have taken into the museum. However, they were not able to change the old-fashioned ways of public enterprise: That’s developing, engineering, construction and real estate only. The other new businesses were not produced so much.
Big companies which are related to engineering, construction, real estate, developing and so on swarmed the government-funded projects such as the redeveloping of Tsukiji , the constructing of the New National Stadium, the Olympic Village, multi-storied hotels and apartment buildings.
Furthermore, both Tokyo and the central governments were also ambitious of making Tokyo and near regions like Yokohama more attractive to the super wealthy people and business owners from abroad: The leading party tried to build IR (integrated resort facilities including casinos) sites in some big cities. They passed the relative bill and so far seven cities have been announced as the candidates. That’s why some members of the LDP were involved with the lobbying of the companies who wanted to start up the IR business. Although Sheldon Adelson, the owner of Sands Hotel & Casino had been so interested in starting the business in Japan, he totally withdrew from Japan. (*5) There was a corruption case that former IR Minister and the LDP lawmaker, Yasushi Akimoto, was charged and sentenced guilty for receiving bribery.
Then Coronavirus pandemic worsens
but there had already been various problems about the Olympics
before the pandemic
The COVID 19 pandemic has influenced not only economics but also ethics, community spirits, education, and so on since it was declared in March of 2020. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Paralympic Games were postponed and it is a highly controversial topic that the games might be held amid the pandemic this summer.
However, before the pandemic happened, we had have already a lot of problems without any solutions: The extremely hot weather during the dates of the games that could kill athletes, spectators, and volunteer staffers. (*6)It is reported that there are significantly greater number cases of emergency calls to 119 (ambulance) for the heatstroke in July and August in Tokyo. (*7)The highest temperature in a day is over 35 C. It could be hotter than that in Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, the venue of golf.
The lack of gender equality in the Organizing Committee is also a big problem, which was revealed by the (*8)discriminatory comments of its former head, Yoshiro Mori, the other day. The golf club mentioned in the previous paragraph actually hadn’t permitted females its membership until 2017.
It is another problem that volunteer staff including medical practitioners will work without pay (without an accident insurance, traveling and staying fees). The Organizing Committee doesn’t make their organization’s accounts public though significant amount of public funds from our tax have been input.
In spite of those problems, the main stream media doesn’t criticize the Organizing Committee so harshly because the main newspaper companies are financially supporting the Games from the beginning. They will never mention critiques about the Organizing Committee’s murky finance. Even now they never clearly say that the Games should be cancelled while the pandemic with only one percent of the population finished their vaccination.
There are still many other problems that the Tokyo 2021 Olympics distorted a lot. Most of the Japanese people don’t want the Games any more. If the Games were not be held in Tokyo this summer, the measures to fight COVID 19 would not be devastated to this degree.
Prime Minister Suga and the Organizing Committee’s new chief, Seiko Hashimoto, keep on saying that the Games are being held as scheduled but a lot of articles that are demanding its cancellation have been published from foreign media. (Personally I think those who insist that the Games are being held are insane.)
I think that various variants will spread in Japan earlier than athletes from the world and the competition will become the Coronalympics. Anyway, I think that there are not so many athletes who want to come over to Japan. Actually some pro athletes have already announced they would not come. Japan looks strange to the rest of the world. If the Olympics take place this summer, the standard would be lowered and it would damage Japan’s reputation.
References
(*1)
https://www.olympic.org/2020-host-city-election
(*2)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-lobbying-exclusive-idUSKBN21I0CX
(*4)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-idUSKCN11D0UF
(*6)
https://www.tfd.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/lfe/topics/202005/heat.html
(*7)
https://weather.goo.ne.jp/appearance_ratio/p0018/0700/
https://kawagoe-info.net/walk-kawagoe/kawagoe-atsui
(*8)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55929404
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