Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You

This is not a particularly auspicious start to the Olympics. https://t.co/liLdMnHyBF

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 18, 2021

Tokyo troubles mounting as positive COVID-19 tests continue to roll in, now topping 60 athletes, including as alternate on the US Olympic gymnastics team. #Olympics #TokyoOlympics #coronavirus #COVID19 #USGymnastics #gymnastics #tennis https://t.co/GzLQLG3RdB

— John Gravois (@Grav1) July 19, 2021

Tokyo Games organizers insisted Monday that the Olympic Village is "a safe place to stay," as fears of a coronavirus cluster emerged just days before the opening ceremony. #Tokyo2020 https://t.co/awDa3Ni7q1

— GMA Sports (@gmasportsph) July 19, 2021

Tens of thousands of visiting athletes, officials and media are descending on Japan for an Olympics unlike any other. There will be no foreign fans, no local fans in Tokyo-area venues and a surge of virus cases has led to a state of emergency. By @APklug https://t.co/oxfTmtmAEG

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 19, 2021

… No foreign fans. No local attendance in Tokyo-area venues. A reluctant populace navigating a surge of virus cases amid a still-limited vaccination campaign. Athletes and their entourages confined to a quasi-bubble, under threat of deportation. Government minders and monitoring apps trying — in theory, at least — to track visitors’ every move. Alcohol curtailed or banned. Cultural exchanges, the kind that power the on-the-ground energy of most Games, completely absent.

And running like an electric current through it all: the inescapable knowledge of the suffering and sense of displacement that COVID-19 has ushered in, both here and around the world.

All signs point to an utterly surreal and atomized Games, one that will divide Japan into two worlds during the month of Olympics and Paralympics competition.

On one side, most of Japan’s largely unvaccinated, increasingly resentful populace will continue soldiering on through the worst pandemic to hit the globe in a century, almost entirely separated from the spectacle of the Tokyo Games aside from what they see on TV. Illness and recovery, work and play, both curtailed by strict virus restrictions: Life, such as it is, will go on here.

Meanwhile, in massive (and massively expensive) locked-down stadiums, vaccinated super-athletes, and the legions of reporters, IOC officials, volunteers and handlers that make the Games go, will do their best to concentrate on sports served up to a rapt and remote audience of billions…

Barring catastrophe, the IOC, local newspapers (many of which are also sponsors), Japanese TV, and rights holders like NBC will likely be unified in their message: Just getting through will be cast as a triumph.

Not many visiting journalists, however, will linger in ICUs or chase down interviews with angry residents who feel these Games were hoisted onto the nation so that the IOC could collect its billions in TV money…

Some numbers here, to show the calculations involved:

Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will put medals around their own necks in a nod to safety. It is a significant change to traditional medal ceremonies for 339 events on the schedule.

Full story >> https://t.co/bMkTkbLX26#Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/LP8hUMaWDm

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) July 14, 2021

Some resent the massive security apparatus in place for the Tokyo Olympics. But others say authorities are doing too little to protect largely unvaccinated Japan from thousands of athletes and other visitors who might introduce COVID-19 variants. https://t.co/KpGZ9pBuel

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 17, 2021

Struggling businesses forced to temporarily shut down around Olympics venues. Olympic visitors ordered to install invasive apps and allow GPS tracking. Minders staking out hotels to keep participants from coming into contact with ordinary Japanese or visiting restaurants to sample the sushi…

The worry for many here, however, isn’t too much Big Brother. It’s that all the increased precautions won’t be nearly enough to stop the estimated 85,000 athletes, officials, journalists and other workers coming into Japan from introducing fast-spreading coronavirus variants to a largely unvaccinated population already struggling with mounting cases.

“It’s all based on the honor system, and it’s causing concern that media people and other participants may go out of their hotels to eat in Ginza,” Takeshi Saiki, an opposition lawmaker, said of what he called Japan’s lax border controls. So far, the majority of Olympic athletes and other participants have been exempted from typical quarantine requirements.

There have been regular breakdowns in security as the sheer enormity of trying to police so many visitors becomes clearer — and the opening ceremony looms. The Japanese press is filled with reports of Olympic-related people testing positive for the coronavirus. Photos and social media posts show foreigners linked to the Games breaking mask rules and drinking in public, smoking in airports — even, if the bios are accurate, posting on dating apps.

“There are big holes in the bubbles,” said Ayaka Shiomura, another opposition lawmaker, speaking of the so-called “bubbles” that are supposed to separate the Olympics’ participants from the rest of the country…

Tokyo spectator ban leaves Olympic athletes perplexed https://t.co/I1hcqvdS7a pic.twitter.com/0jIf940e6g

— Reuters (@Reuters) July 19, 2021

… Some athletes, among them Japan’s football [soccer] team men’s captain, Maya Yoshida, question the decision to bar spectators.

“A lot of people’s tax money is going to hold these Olympics,” Yoshida recently. “Despite that, people can’t go and watch. So you wonder about who the Olympics is for, and what it is for.”

[Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe] Dubi said such questions should be put to the organisers and local authorities.

“We have received questions from a number of athletes who are observing the same. As far as the IOC is concerned we respect this decision and abide by this rule but you could address this question to the organising committee or the local authorities,” he said when asked by Reuters.

Dubi said there was still the possibility that should the number of coronavirus cases drop then organisers could review the ban.

Key changes to medal ceremonies @Tokyo2020:
➡️Participants with masks at all times
➡️More distancing between gold, silver and bronze
➡️All presenters vaccinated
➡️Athletes take medals from trays carried by presenters
➡️No group photo on gold medal podiumhttps://t.co/KOuHgNoeps

— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) July 15, 2021

Toyota won’t be airing any Olympic-themed advertisements on Japanese television during the Games despite being one of the top corporate sponsors. The extraordinary decision underlines how polarizing the Games have become as COVID-19 infections rise. https://t.co/PdgsIVxuoY

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 19, 2021

… “There are many issues with these Games that are proving difficult to be understood,” Toyota Chief Communications Officer Jun Nagata told reporters Monday.

Chief Executive Akio Toyoda, the company founder’s grandson, will be skipping the opening ceremony. That’s despite about 200 athletes taking part in the Olympics and Paralympics who are affiliated with Toyota, including swimmer Takeshi Kawamoto and softball player Miu Goto.

Nagata said the company will continue to support its athletes…

Motoyuki Niitsuma, a manufacturing plant worker who was banging on a bucket in a recent Tokyo protest against the Olympics, said he didn’t like the idea of cheering for the national team, and the pandemic has made that message clear.

“The time to compete is over. Now is the time to cooperate,” he said. “We should never have gotten the Games.”

Two-thirds of Japanese doubt pandemic Olympics can be safe, says poll https://t.co/EHAUPSceY4 pic.twitter.com/VpArr5Wa1k

— Reuters (@Reuters) July 19, 2021