3/22/2023 0 Comments Slovenia olympic games tokyo 2020They were joined by Japanese power brokers like Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and Yoshiro Mori, the former prime minister and current President of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee. The events marking one year before the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics drew the usual herd from the International Olympic Committee, including IOC Coordination Commission Chair John Coates of Australia, IOC member Alex Gilady from Israel, and Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi. The ritualized concern for “the affected regions” and “the devastated areas,” without mentioning Fukushima by name or alluding to the nuclear meltdown, came across as scripted euphemizing in service of the Olympic spectacle. Of course, Bach also failed to mention that sports mega-events like the Olympics have become flashpoints for anti-capitalist struggle, with the Games’ negative social and ecological repercussions becoming increasingly evident.Įarlier that day at a gala media event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed the “Recovery Games” theme hard, telling the assembled journalists, “We want to showcase the affected regions of the tsunami.” Bach echoed the prime minister: “You will see that people in the devastated areas will benefit from the infrastructure brought by the Games and they will benefit from the hope that the Olympics bring” (Zirin and Boykoff Citation2019a). This oversight was all the more conspicuous because Japanese organizers have dubbed the 2020 Tokyo Olympics the “Recovery Games.” To get the point across, organizers chose Fukushima to start the Olympic torch relay, where, beginning in March 2020, the “Flame of Recovery” will wend its way through the radioactive countryside under the banner “Hope Lights Our Way” (TOCOPG, Citationn.d.). Bach failed to mention the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown of March 2011, a destructive trifecta etched in Japan's collective memory. He praised the pace of ticket sales, business sponsorship levels, and the volume of volunteer applications. On 24 July 2019 International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach stepped to the dais at the Tokyo International Forum and opined, “I have never seen an Olympic city as prepared as Tokyo with one year to go before the Olympic Games” (Bach Citation2019).
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