The Tokyo Games Prove that the Olympics are Less Relevant than Ever
Sonali Kolhatkar
The coronavirus pandemic is resurging around the world once more, driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19. Yet, athletic teams and players are competing in the Olympics, the world’s most prestigious games, as though it were 2016. The one-year postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics stemmed from the deadly new virus spreading across the globe, but apparently, this is no longer a relevant concern even though infections are still surging. Perhaps the event’s organizers and stakeholders felt that the cost of a second postponement or outright cancellation was simply higher than the lives it will inevitably cost to go ahead as planned. Or perhaps it was mere hubris?
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said just before the games started, “overcoming the hardship of the coronavirus and to be able to hold the Games, I think there is real value in that.” But the event itself has been a hardship both in terms of public health and public funds, and we may look back on this year’s Olympics—held during a pandemic, extreme poverty, and a violently changing climate—as a perfect symbol of the increasing irrelevance of state borders, the subservience of humanity to nature, and the moral bankruptcy of our modern global economy.
In a world where international travel is commonplace, the coronavirus knows no borders. In 2020, the virus rapidly spread across the globe, and in 2021, its variants are impacting places far away from where they first mutated. It is no wonder that there is widespread opposition among the Japanese public to holding the games in the face of a deadly disease. A majority of those recently polled in Tokyo were convinced that the Olympics could not be held safely. “Gold medals are being given priority over people’s lives,” said anti-Olympics activist Misako Ichimura, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hundreds of people connected to the games have already tested positive for COVID-19, including more than two dozen athletes. Japan’s medical association just announced a national emergency over rising cases of infection. The situation is so serious that patients are being turned away from hospitals struggling to keep up. Rather than proof that the Olympics are a symbol of victory against the virus, the games are a stark demonstration that the virus may be the one walking away with a gold medal.
In dollar amounts, the Tokyo games are the most expensive on record by far. Originally expecting the cost to be about $7.4 billion, the Japanese government’s price tag has now exceeded $20 billion. This includes the nearly $3 billion cost of a one-year delay. The single biggest line item in the Tokyo Olympics budget was the building of massive new venues where the games are being played, and which now sit largely empty and are a disgraceful display of wasted public resources.
Aside from the impacts to public health and finances, the Olympics do little to further global cooperation. White supremacy, anti-immigrant hate, and pandemic-related racism have surged all over the world in the past several years. Although enthusiasts would like to believe that the Olympics are a celebration of athletic achievement and a time to set aside rivalries and come together to revel in the heights of human achievement, the games are first and foremost a display of crass nationalism. Olympians are defined by the country they belong to, and their wins and losses are proxy wins and losses for their respective nations. The Olympics would be an entirely different institution if athletes competed as individuals, detached from the stamps on their passports. It is precisely the borders that separate performers (for they are indeed performing for a global audience) from one another that generate the tension and excitement among audiences.
Instead of unity, the games are all about showing off: the nation hosting the Olympics strives to display greatness and takes pains to hide pesky things like wealth inequality and homelessness. The individuals and teams competing with one another feel pressured to strive beyond their capabilities because the whole world is watching them succeed (or fail). The entire event is a grand exhibit of mass braggadocio, being held at a time when a global pandemic is surging, inequality is staggering, and the effects of climate change are all around us in the form of extreme heat, raging floods, and deadly wildfires.
It is standard form for host nations to sweep away homeless communities, fuel gentrification, and waste public resources to present a rosy picture for viewers and visitors at the expense of local residents. That is precisely what happened in 1984 when Los Angeles hosted the games, and that is what has happened in Tokyo ahead of this year’s games. A Los Angeles Times analysis concluded that “It’s become as reliable a part of the Olympics as cost overruns and allegations of corruption that the Games displace some of the host city’s most vulnerable residents.” It is no wonder that increasingly cities are choosing not to host the games.
Looking ahead to the 2024 Olympics in Paris and to 2028 when the games will return to Los Angeles, the residents of those cities should expect to pay a similarly steep price for the supposed prestige of hosting the international event. In LA, where I live, the stakes are higher than ever. Even before the pandemic, skyrocketing housing prices dramatically increased LA’s unhoused population. The losses of the past year and a half have worsened the situation to untenable heights, and city officials earlier this year resorted to violent police sweeps of homeless encampments. Instead of investing in resources for the unhoused or regulating the housing market, the LA City Council recently passed a resolution effectively criminalizing homelessness and banning many outdoor tent living situations. It is as if the city is offering a preview of what is to come ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
In addition to fueling nationalism, sucking up public resources, and hiding social ills, the Olympics are a show of corporate PR. No matter how much fans may tout the “Olympic spirit” as central to the games, for global corporations, the Olympics are a perfect opportunity for large-scale advertising and sponsorship, and this year companies have invested billions of dollars into the Tokyo Olympics. But with the pandemic raging, even corporate sponsors are now too embarrassed to revel in the spectacle, downplaying their participation and disappointed in the low audience numbers their products are being received by.
Here in the U.S., television viewership of the Olympics is significantly down, much to the disappointment of NBC, which bought the broadcasting rights. Like the Japanese PM, the American TV platform was betting on the Olympics being a welcome distraction for a populace weary of the pandemic. “After everything the world has gone through… I do think that people are craving the shared experience,” said the NBC Olympics executive producer.
While it is possible that viewers today have many more choices of what to watch on streaming platforms than during past Olympics, it is also possible that many have simply lost their taste for a spectacle that relies on a facade of perfection when so much disaster is unfolding.
It is no wonder that some of the most prolific news coverage of the games has not focused on this year’s gold medal winners but on the American gymnast Simone Biles’ brave decision to withdraw from several Olympic events because she decided to prioritize her mental health over winning at all costs. It is as though Americans find a hardworking woman who has chosen self-care over competition to be a much more relatable figure at a time when our mental and physical resources are being exhausted.
Like Biles, perhaps we ought to focus on fixing our own problems rather than investing our scarce resources in a spectacle that costs us more than we can afford to give.
(Sonali Kolhatkar is founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Courtesy: Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.)
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‘Overt Sexualization’: Why Olympic Women Athletes Ran into Uniform Trouble Before the Games
After a year-long delay, the 2020 Olympic Games are in full swing in Tokyo — but for some women athletes, there was controversy around what they can and cannot wear even before the opening ceremony.
Days before the official start of the two-week-long sporting spectacle on July 23, British Paralympic athlete Olivia Breen said she was told by a female official at the English Championships that her sprint briefs were “too short and inappropriate.”, leaving her “speechless”.
Meanwhile, a swimming cap designed by U.K. brand Soul Cap specifically for thick, curly and voluminous hair that was set to be worn by Alice Dearing, Britain’s first Black swimmer at the Olympics, has been banned by the international water sports federation FINA for not following “the natural form of the head.”
Separately, Norway‘s women’s beach handball team, which is not competing at the Olympics, was fined for wearing athletic shorts instead of bikini bottoms in a bronze-medal match against Spain at the Beach Handball Euro 2021 tournament, after officials deemed the shorts to be “improper clothing.”
So far, no athletes or teams have been fined or reprimanded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, a retired professor from the University of Toronto specializing in critiques of the Olympic industry and gender issues in sport, said what we saw in the lead-up to the Tokyo Games is “depressing,” but not surprising.
“There are sports where the overt sexualization of female bodies is really paramount — and gymnastics, beach volleyball and beach handball are among the top ones,” she told Global News.
“So unfortunately, that has a long tradition.”
History of ‘discrimination’
This is not the first time women athletes have been sanctioned for their attire.
In 2019, the French Tennis Federation president objected to the full-body catsuit worn by American tennis star Serena Williams at the French Open, saying it will no longer be accepted at the tournament.
At the 2018 U.S. Open, Frenchwoman Alize Cornet got a code violation warning of “unsportsmanlike behaviour” for changing her top behind the baseline on the court, revealing a sports bra.
The U.S. Open later issued an apology and clarified its policy.
In 1985, American tennis player Anne White was also told to wear something more “appropriate” by the Wimbledon referee after she played her first round in a long-sleeved white spandex bodysuit.
Lenskyj said the rules and dress code in sport are discriminatory against women, as the same scrutiny does not apply to the men.
According to the International Handball Federation rules, women “must wear bikini bottoms.” The bottoms must have “a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg,” the rules say, while the side width “must be of a maximum of 10 centimetres.”
As for men, they are allowed to wear shorts that are “not too baggy,” as long as they remain 10 centimetres above the kneecap.
Who makes the decisions?
The athlete dress code falls under the jurisdiction of the governing international body for each sport.
According to the IOC charter, the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), “have the sole and exclusive authority to prescribe and determine the clothing and uniforms to be worn, and the equipment to be used, by the members of their delegations on the occasion of the Olympic Games.”
Lenskyj believes the onus falls on both the IOC as well as the international federations.
She said dress codes are dictated, to a large extent, by money and commercial interests. And the rules are made mostly by men who are in leadership positions in international federations.
Moreover, with no spectators this year, the Olympics are primarily a made-for-TV event.
“The television spectacle is paramount and sex sells sport — or specifically, heterosexual sex sells sport,” said Lenskyj. “It has been the case for decades and women have challenged that in the past and continue to challenge it.”
Amid the controversies, some women are taking a stand in Tokyo.
Germany’s women gymnasts opted to wear full-body suits or unitards instead of the standard leotard during the qualifying round in a stance “against sexualization” in the sport.
“We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear,” German gymnast Elisabeth Seitz said.
(Courtesy: Global News.)
