It will be bad.
The Tokyo Olympics history is yet to be written but the International Olympic Committee is always looking for the Olympics legacy in the city that has paid for the big event. Right now, Tokyo’s legacy looks awful. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the IOC and the Tokyo Olympic committee were looking at a large debt, possibly billions of dollars from the event. Then came COVID-19 and that forced the IOC to postpone the event for a year after various national Olympic committees said they were not showing up for the July 2020 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee was forced to postpone the event for a year. But in the countdown to the 2021 Tokyo event, COVID-19 was not going away although in May, 2021, the IOC President Thomas Bach and the IOC Vice President John Coates of Australia guaranteed that the 2021 event would not be a public health problem.
In May, Coates said that it was now “clearer than ever” that the Games would be safe for everyone participating, as well as the general public in Japan. There are daily reminders that not everything is safe, whether that be in the Olympic Village or in Tokyo where the virus is spreading. Coates also ordered the Premier of Queensland, an Australian state, to get to Tokyo for the opening ceremonies after Brisbane in Queensland got the right to hold the 2032 Summer Olympics. Then there is the American gymnast, Simone Biles. She dropped out of the competition because her mental well-being was more important than winning a gold medal. But that doesn’t help Comcast NBC Universal because there will be less eyeballs watching gymnastics and NBC is reeling from terrible Olympics TV ratings. The Tokyo legacy could be remembered years from now. A total failure.
