kill the olympics

[IPLore]

It would pull a lot of grassroots funding, coaching and learning opportunities out from the sport.

 I get that it's broken in the USA. but that doesn't mean it's broken everywhere. Maybe it would be better to fix it in the US, rather than just dumping on the event?

Cheers,

              W.

Ditching Olympic sailing will not have any beneficial effect on sailing in the US.

A large part of US sailing is nothing to do with the Olympics. The success or lack of success of sailing in the US is dependent on other factors.  The fact that a few US sailors have been to the Olympics and a few even have medals to prove it , is a good thing for the sport's image.

It does not cost us anything, all Olympic funding in the US comes from IOC funds handed out to US sailing and money raised from private sponsors and supporters. 

 

[Rum Runner]

Ditching Olympic sailing will not have any beneficial effect on sailing in the US.

A large part of US sailing is nothing to do with the Olympics. The success or lack of success of sailing in the US is dependent on other factors.  The fact that a few US sailors have been to the Olympics and a few even have medals to prove it , is a good thing for the sport's image.

It does not cost us anything, all Olympic funding in the US comes from IOC funds handed out to US sailing and money raised from private sponsors and supporters. 

Those of us who pay dues to US Ailing also have our $$$ going to the Olympic program. Paul Cayard does not work cheaply and he is a USS employee.

 

[TheDragon]

Japan messed this up royally by insisting on doing their own testing of vaccines before using them, delaying the rollout by months, as if this disease is any different in Japan (remember the first spread there from a cruise ship). Anyway, it seems nuts to cancel the olympics when most of the visiting athletes and coaches will have been vaccinated. I for one would be very sad to see it cancelled.

 

[Commercial Boater]

NYT gives 83% of Japanese against holding the Olympics there this year. Other articles give varying figures but all well above 2/3rds of the population against hosting the Olympics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/asia/covid-japan-olympics-poll.html

Seems cut and dried that the Japanese as hosts should have the final say. That they would want to lose the chance to host the Olympics and the money/tourism which attends it should show how deeply-held and genuine their desire to not host is.

 

[Rum Runner]

NYT gives 83% of Japanese against holding the Olympics there this year. Other articles give varying figures but all well above 2/3rds of the population against hosting the Olympics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/asia/covid-japan-olympics-poll.html

Seems cut and dried that the Japanese as hosts should have the final say. That they would want to lose the chance to host the Olympics and the money/tourism which attends it should show how deeply-held and genuine their desire to not host is.

It seems like the tourism benefit is shot now. With the US issuing its travel advisory I doubt many big companies will send groups to the games. Tour organizers will be equally wary. You may only have parents and coaches in the stands at the end of the day.  

 

[IPLore]

It seems like the tourism benefit is shot now. With the US issuing its travel advisory I doubt many big companies will send groups to the games. Tour organizers will be equally wary. You may only have parents and coaches in the stands at the end of the day.  

The decision to ban overseas visitors was taken just over 2 months ago. That has been off the table for a while.

 

[armchairadmiral]

World championships are where it's at . Any competitor can have a shot. No one gets excluded by a selection process by non sailing officialdom..%5ring circus has run its race !

 

[IPLore]

NYT gives 83% of Japanese against holding the Olympics there this year. Other articles give varying figures but all well above 2/3rds of the population against hosting the Olympics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/asia/covid-japan-olympics-poll.html

Seems cut and dried that the Japanese as hosts should have the final say. That they would want to lose the chance to host the Olympics and the money/tourism which attends it should show how deeply-held and genuine their desire to not host is.

Contractually speaking, the IOC has the final say.  It was the IOC who decided to postpone for a year.  The japanese hosts initially disagreed but came round to that decision.

The host is the City of Tokyo and the Japanese Olympic Committee. See contract here : https://gtimg.tokyo2020.org/image/upload/production/rtd40rja1u5m4p7oifej.pdf

The JOC is equivalent to USOC, and is responsible for coordinating the Japanese teams and sports federations. 

The calls to postpone the Olympics are being pointed at the central Government at prime minister who is trying to deflect then to IOC and Tokyo. Ultimately the PM, Suga can make immigration etc impossible for the games to proceed but of course he would rather an such announcement comes from IOC.

This would be the fourth time in history that the games are cancelled and two of those four times , Tokyo is the host city.  Lightening does strike twice.   This would be the first time the Olympics are cancelled outside a world war.

 

[IPLore]

World championships are where it's at . Any competitor can have a shot. No one gets excluded by a selection process by non sailing officialdom..%5ring circus has run its race !

And yet an OLympic medal in the cabinet shines brighter than a world championship trophy.  I agree with you that the world championship can include tougher competition. ITs the mystique, the training and rarity (once every 4 years) that make it so alluring for the athletes.

 

[Rasputin22]

There is only one reason athletes want to go to the Olympics anyway,

An Olympic tradition
And at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, a record 450,000 condoms were distributed — enough for each participating athlete to have 42 condoms.

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

yawn .... if the Japanese as a whole don't want the games, then why should they be pressured into having them by the IOC or anyone else? 

perhaps they have more respect for the lives and safety of their own people than some others do...  I dont give a shit one way or the other. 

 

[spankoka]

Is Covid really an issue in Japan for vaccinated Olympians or is something else at play here?

As a former resident of Japan, I am guessing that the Japanese propensity for defaulting to inpatient care as a precaution does have an effect on Covid-19 filling up the hospital beds. Thus, it is an issue because athletes who do get sick or injured may end up being triaged in the parking lot-which would hardly meet the standards of say...NBA players. They aren't going to boot a local out of a hospital bed because someone thinks their knees are worth more than other peoples knees. It is a fact that even during normal times ambulances in Japan sometimes have to shop around patients to several ERs before they find one with a bed. In the end, the Japanese health care system is what you get in Japan for better or worse. 

 

[IPLore]

Tens of thousands of people coming from every corner of the world to a crowded country struggling to contain a highly contagious and deadly virus.

Then going back home to  every corner of the world. Could you draw up a plan to better spread a virus around the globe? I think not. 

For the sake of playing games? What could possibly go wrong?

The 10,600 athletes and the additional coaches and officials are 80% vaccinated (and perhaps one could make it compulsory) so they will not be spreading the virus back home.

How Japan handles the community virus spread in their country will depend on them and their rate of vaccination.  They have 35.5 million un-vaccinated people in greater Tokyo. I think the greatest risk to the Japanese is not 4,000 residents in the Olympic village that they will not be allowed to get close to but the 35.5 million potential virus hosts sharing their streets and places of work. 

Takeda is one of the larger vaccine companies in the world with large GBU in Boston selling vaccines in the US.......time to vaccine their own population.

 

[Mid]

apparently an overwhelming majority of the host countries own citizens want the games stopped .

 

[EYESAILOR]

apparently an overwhelming majority of the host countries own citizens want the games stopped .

Not new news.

The political pressure for the government to intervene will be immense.  80+% is much greater than any one political party can poll. It goes across all political spectrum. It doesnt seem to matter how safe the IOC and JOC make the games. Even if the athletes were 100% vaccinated, I think the Japanese population is scared and at a peak of fear. The Olympics has become a symbol of that fear.

They avoided the worst of the early stages of the pandemic due to their cultural willingness to act as a community adopting masks and distancing but inevitably the various waves and subsequent variants have passed through, each wave bigger than the prior one.  Their numbers are still low vs rest of the world but they do not have mass vaccination program underway and until Japan is vaccinated they will remain susceptible.

It might not be logical to cancel games if the participants are vaccinated but fear is not logical and the Japanese are fearful of further variants arriving on just one athlete.

I score cancellation as a 60% probability.  They should have postponed longer than they did.   There was never any way the world was going to get vaccinated in just a year.

 

[Mid]

I score cancellation as a 60% probability.

lot lower , money doesn't talk , it swears .

They should have postponed longer than they did.   There was never any way the world was going to get vaccinated in just a year.

concur .

 

[Jethrow]

There is no postpone. From here it's either go ahead or cancel.

 

[EYESAILOR]

lot lower , money doesn't talk , it swears .

concur .

I agree......and the money is huge.  Some of the TV revenue losses get absorbed by event cancellation insurance. Many of the attendance losses are already unavoidable . Overseas visitors are already banned and will need to be refunded. Local attendees will be likely be diminished.  Nevertheless cancellation will incur more losses. 

So if you are a Japanese politician, the most important driving force in your life is to get re-elected.   If the infection rate increases during the Olympics, you know that a candidate will run against you saying he/she would have cancelled.  If yo cancel, 80% of the voters will think you did the right thing....and nobody will ever know if the Olympics would have been safe but your reelection chances have not been damaged. 

Human nature is self preservation so I think there will be tendency for politcians to lean towards cancellation if the mood is the same in 3 weeks time.

The only hope for the Olympics is that in 3-4 weeks, the global pandemic should have significantly abated in the vaccinated regions. If the IOC can persuade public opinion that a vaccinated population of athletes is safe then there is hope....but its a long shot.  

This would be different if Japan was making progress on vaccination but they will still be well behind in July.

 

[Meat Wad]

Ed posted a piece suggesting that the 2021 Olympics should be cancelled due to "high" covid case rates in Japan.

Japan has managed Covid so well that a small increase suddenly is creating an outsized response.

California only got below the per capita rate of Japan's spike last week but has long been considered as being "ready to open".  The CA spike was about 22 times higher (2200%) of the highest Japanese spike.

Is Covid really an issue in Japan for vaccinated Olympians or is something else at play here?

very well could be. let's hope you are correct.

With only 12,000+ deaths in Japan so far, why would they want to open their border to a national health risk of massive proportion? They contained it so well compared to other countries that I would say as a nation “No thank you. We do not desire to become a host for another competition-for our lives.”

YMMV

He's right. Only 12k deaths out 126 million. But, they take care of their elderly.

Makes the US look 3rd world.

 

[spankoka]

The political pressure for the government to intervene will be immense.  80+% is much greater than any one political party can poll. It goes across all political spectrum. It doesnt seem to matter how safe the IOC and JOC make the games. Even if the athletes were 100% vaccinated, I think the Japanese population is scared and at a peak of fear. The Olympics has become a symbol of that fear.

There are so many safe LDP seats and useless opposition parties that no; the LDP don't necessarily have to concern themselves with public sentiment. Just look at how Abe spent his political capital on Article 9 revision, an issue that maybe three percent of the population actually cares about. The latest conjecture from the Japan Doctors Union is that new made in Japan vaccine resistant virus variants could spread all over the world from the games.