Five trumpeters, in the Komazawa Olympic Park, in an empty stadium. /
Tokyo 2020
The stands remained empty at the Komazawa Olympic Park Stadium and the event was relegated to small lighting ceremonies
The Olympic flame arrived in Tokyo on Friday for a grim ceremony in an empty stadium, after Japan and the organizers of the Olympics banned spectators from most sporting events for fear of the coronavirus.
Under a gray and rainy sky, exactly two weeks before the opening of the Games scheduled for July 23, the Olympic torch arrived in a lantern that was symbolically presented to Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo. “I am happy that we are welcoming the Relay of the Flame with this legacy that we proudly display at home and abroad,” said Koike.
The governor of Tokyo, who was recently hospitalized for exhaustion, coughed three times during the short speech and several more after it ended. On Thursday he called holding the tests behind closed doors during the Tokyo Olympics “heartbreaking”, and asked locals to follow the competitions from home “safely”.
Tokyo 2020 organizers and Japanese authorities announced Thursday that they were banning spectators from attending sports events in the capital. The public will be able to access some competitions outside of Tokyo, such as the Fukushima department.
It is a new measure without precedent in Olympic history, after the ban on spectators from abroad in March, and the postponement of the Tokyo Games last year due to the pandemic.
Empty stadium
Many athletes from around the world expected in Tokyo showed their disappointment, and some, like Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, chose to throw in the towel.
The almost total closed-door dispute was decreed after a decision by the Japanese government to reinstate the state of health emergency in Tokyo until August 22, given the increase in cases of covid-19 and the spread of the Delta variant, plus contagious. This device, which will cover the entire period of the Olympic Games, which conclude on August 8, especially establishes restrictions for bars and restaurants.
The Olympic torch relay – something that was initially supposed to arouse enthusiasm – was relegated to small flame-lighting ceremonies without spectators, after the event was banned from the streets of various departments and in Tokyo.
This Friday, five trumpeters dressed in suits played a tune under a kiosk that protected them from the drizzle, in front of the media and a handful of officials.
But the stands remained empty at the Komazawa Olympic Park stadium on the outskirts of the capital, which was built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
“Negligible” negative impact
Although the Japanese archipelago has been relatively spared from the COVID-19 pandemic so far, with fewer than 15,000 officially recorded deaths since early 2020, its vaccination program has not been accelerated until May.
At the moment only 17% of the population has been fully vaccinated and experts fear that the Delta variant will cause a new wave that could overwhelm healthcare in the country, triggering the number of hospitalizations.
On the economic front, the Games behind closed doors should have a “fairly insignificant” negative impact for Japan, Masamichi Adachi, an economist for UBS, recalled this Friday for the AFP agency.
The GDP of Japan, the third largest economic power in the world, should even grow in the second half of 2021, while the advance in vaccination will allow the restoration of consumption, according to Adachi.
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