It should have been a festive Friday, an opening ceremony Friday in a brand new and full Olympic stadium. As the epidemic spreads inexorably on the American continent, the inhabitants of Tokyo are invited this weekend to stay at home, the cases of Covid-19 starting again on the rise in recent days. Just to dampen the atmosphere a little more, a recent survey shows that one in two Tokyoites is now in favor of a further postponement or cancellation of the Games.
On Thursday, the Olympic flame, sheltered since arriving in Japan on March 20, reappeared, the organizers restarted the countdown to the Games, now scheduled from July 23 to August 8, 2021 but still stamped Tokyo 2020. Officially, there is no question for the organizers to give up the biggest sports competition in the world which has already cost nearly 11 billion euros. The real price of the postponement will not be known until the fall, but some specialists are counting on an additional envelope of 5 billion euros.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has already added 650 million euros to the pot, the partners (more than 3 billion euros in contribution which make Tokyo the most sponsored Games in history) are waiting before taking a position . Not easy in this funny climate to be optimistic about an Olympic outfit next summer. However, the organizing committee is continuing its operations with the leitmotif “simplifying the Games”, in order to limit the financial impact caused by the postponement. 200 proposals - not disclosed - are under study. Tokyo 2020 does not forbid anything, except to touch the number of participating athletes (11,000) or the quality of the competitions. The new program has recently been formalized and foresees almost no changes. On the other hand, one could imagine a decrease in the number of coaches and guides (usually 5,000), or a level of service below the usual standards.
The closed door hypothesis ruled out
The organizing committee is also giving itself until December to study the health measures that could be put in place in the event of Covid-19. "If we can organize the Games with the coronavirus, Tokyo could be a model for the next Olympic Games or other international events," said Toshiro Muto, the managing director of the Organizing Committee, in an interview with Reuters.
The IOC has already rejected the idea of competitions behind closed doors (just like the Olympic Games without some of the 206 delegations that would undermine the principle of universality). Here again, everything is on the table: the Olympics with a small audience, with Japanese or international spectators, with athletes tested or placed in quarantine ... A small note of optimism, the organizers have managed to keep all the sites that were planned for this summer, in particular the Olympic village which should have been converted into housing from October. The flame continues to shine, in an undisclosed location, waiting for the right moment to be exposed. And to give hope to 11,000 athletes around the world.
Paris 2024 holds its breath
Last April, in full confinement, in an interview with Franc Jeux, Etienne Thobois, the director general of Paris 2024 thought that “the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics” was “favorable” to the Parisian dossier. “We planned to use these Games as a visibility platform for our partners. They will be more numerous in 2021 to be able to take advantage of it, ”he estimated at the time. Since then, France has sunk into the crisis and, even if the organizing committee is promised announcements of sponsors (Orange in particular) by the end of the year, the time is now limited.
A cancellation of the Tokyo Games - the IOC cannot imagine a new postponement - would be downright catastrophic for Paris 2024, which is in the grip of the worst of phenomena: uncertainty. The beautiful Olympic machine, the one which, in peacetime, had never seized up, now jams. What would be the value of the sponsorship entry ticket (estimated at 120 million euros when the Games were awarded in Paris) to participate in an event whose image would be degraded? How to embark the French in an adventure which would have become uncertain? All in a complicated economic context which is already forcing Paris 2024 to review its budget.
Elected officials are now calling for less "bling-bling", less "superfluous spending" and a refocusing on heritage for the territories. The International Olympic Committee, for its part, has taken a turn and pleads for "simplified Games". The future of the Olympic Games depends on it. Paris 2024 will have to wipe the plasters. And in the end, you may regret having left the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
