Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 (2021)

Following months of controversy about whether the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games 2020 should be held at all, in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, this week they have finally started in Japan.

Given the uncertainty about the pandemic in 2020, what it was and is, how the virus might best be dealt with and how its effects on the human race might best be tackled, postponing the Games, previously due to commence a year ago, was surely the correct decision for the International Olympic Committee to have taken. However the Committee's decision to hold the  2020 Games this year, is criticised in many quarters.

That so many Japanese people and others may disagree with the Committee's decision is understandable in the light of the wave of Covid-19  now affecting Japan. This is all the more so  as the Games  have as  result of  local  pandemic restrictions, to be held without  spectators being present, other than in effect, Olympian team members, their trainers, medics and broadcasters. Essentially no members of the public are being admitted to the various  Games' venues to watch and applaud the competitors. 

However despite the dismissals and resignations of some Committee members in Japan and the queries there are about the IOC as a whole, it is surely right that the Games are taking place.

After all, if the views of some politicians, trade union leaders and many others are to be believed, certainly in the UK, mankind should effectively remain locked down semi permanently, which would be absurd.

For what it is worth, my view is that despite the many faults of the organisers, it  was and is, right for the Games to proceed. Many competitors have been training in the harshest of conditions, some whilst locked down and  many if not most,  training centres, swimming pools and gymnasia being closed for weeks, around the world. 

The  efforts made by the Games' competitors,   will be rewarding not only  for themselves  but also for mankind at large, in view of  the presence of TV,  media more generally as well as newspapers and  of course the internet. In other words the huge human  achievements  made by the competitors will be  demonstrated far more widely than merely in the empty venues themselves.

All generations will benefit The youngest Team GB Olympian will be Sky Brown (who I believe was born in Japan) age only 13. She will be competing in the Skateboarding tournament. Hopefully more will decide to take some sport or exercise  themselves as a result of the Olympic and Paralympic Games

The London 2012 Olympics were preceded by moans about the costs and purpose of the Games, which moans continued when a coach of arriving competitors, became lost whilst traveling to the Stratford centre for competitors. Then there was laughter when Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, now of course Prime Minister, became hopelessly entangled in some helicopter wire whilst trying out a stunt of some kind. Yet the Games were a great success, for example  2012 Olympic football, with many of the venues and athletes homes subsequently used for public benefit. 

The Japanese success in holding the Games under such extreme circumstances, will in my view be looked on in the years to come, as one of mankind's great achievements of C21