Tokyo Olympics 2020

[sameerph]

Our Archery team missed on going to the second archery world cup and it seems is struggling to get visas for third world cup which is also an olympic qualifying tournament.

Olympic hopes hang in balance for women archers

It is ridiculous that Indian sportsmen who are fully vaccinated are struggling to go for olympic qualifying events. Ministry must step in and ensure that are at least allowed to travel for olympic qualifying events.

[Kumar]

Would even olympics happen in Japan considering the ongoing Covid cases and lack of support from public ? Just push olympics to 2022 and soccer World Cup to 2023?

This event is becoming more and more difficult to organize with huge cost overrun.I think we may soon reach a tipping point when cities will refuse to host Olympics and we may see olympics disappear.

[jayakris]

^^^ At this point, it maybe better to push it to next year. Let the world get a grip on the pandemic and vacinations. We thought the virus would be much more under control by now, but it looks like one more year is needed, now that we know of the mayhem the mutants can create. The Indian wave has hopefully made everybody sit up and realize that we are not ready to move on. Now, there are quite a few countries (Argentina, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, etc) who are just not able to get the waves to end, and are not too far progressed in vaccination either (not above even 20% with a first shot). It is just not fair really to do it this year when the host country itself is reeling a bit right now.

I mean, I am myself a little surprised at the stats I calculated yesterday that 62% of the world population is not even tested at India's level (better than 1 in 4 people) for us to know whether they even have the virus or what is going on there... and what mutants may be forming there. That is most of Africa, most of S. America, a good portion of Asia and some parts of middle east... And nobody is vaccinated except in the rich countries. India is not even ready to make vaccines for all of these countries for at least another 4-5 months.

What the hell are we thinking, doing Olympics? Postpone it!

[usaindia]

looks like the loss is greater so push for next year
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/25/spor ... index.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/o ... 418076002/

[PKBasu]

The Covid wave in Japan is receding, so hopefully the Olympics will go ahead. It is really quite unfair to the athletes to postpone it any further. It kills it for anyone who is a bit older.

[usaindia]

Major Newspaper is calling for cancellation
https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/i ... s-canceled

[PKBasu]

Asahi Shimbun is a leftist paper, so always strongly opposed to the LDP. But there is indeed a rising chorus of demands for the Olympics to be called off.

[srini]

I can't understand why all these news agencies increase this clamor for cancellation every time Olympics approach when it's business as usual for all these Grand slams, ATP tours and even contact sports like wrestling go on...but ONLY when the Olympics approach do they start realizing that we are in the middle of pandemic!
Why don't people realize that Olympics happen ONCE in 4 years and an athlete too young for 2016 edition can be too old for 2024 and if they don't participate in 2021 if not in 2020, their chances of ever being recognized for their talent is next to NIL. If a person misses a French open they can showcase their ability in Wimbledon or if they are a clay expert can at least wait for next year clay season but not for Olympics. In my humble opinion Olympics should go on especially since spectators won't be allowed anyway.
Besides that, i don't think the agreements between IOA and the hosting nation probably never had the financial liability clause in case they get cancelled, they may start adding it in future. That's why even if citizens of a nation may be averse to holding the event, governments do recognize the financial burden that befalls if Olympics do not go on as planned.

[usaindia]

one of the reasons games may go on is loss of tv rights
The IOC is thought to make around 70% of its money from broadcast rights, and around 18% from sponsorship. If the Games don't go ahead, it could severely damage the IOC's finances, and the future of the Olympic movement.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57240044

[Atithee]

Saina is out of the race for Tokyo Olympics:

https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics-badmi ... 31311.html

[kaustav]

Saina is out of the race for Tokyo Olympics:

https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics-badmi ... 31311.html

So another my favourite star is now close to retirement ..

[Kumar]

@srini, the countries are going to be at competitive disadvantage if they have to quarantine for 14 days (compared to countries that don’t need to). Also if we force every country to quarantine for 14 days in Japan, who is going to pay for their care for 14 days. This could all be very expensive for lot of countries as well.

I think they should look to push this to next year, but it may clash with soccer World Cup. Fortunately, next year not set to start until late November. We could potentially still have both of them next year. May have to push 2024 to 2025 then.

[srini]

@Kumar, i totally agree, not only are some countries at competitive disadvantage due to quarantines restrictions but may already be losing some quotas for participation due to unfair travel bans.cricket associations are negotiating the waivers but not Olympic athletes ?? can't IOC have a blanket travel ban removal for Olympic athletes and still be thinking about Olympic movement ?! These guys would've banned the nation from hosting a future qualifier event and cancelled the eligibility to assign quota from the event if host nation rejected Visa for any athlete but now the same thing happening with host nations unilaterally putting on blanket ban on some athletes showing COVID as excuse!

[jaydeep]

Neeraj is getting chance of playing a couple of the international tournaments before Olympics. He just tweeted,

[depleter]

The good news with Neeraj getting a visa from France is, the line is cleared for the women's archery team to get the visa. Their visa was declined some days back and looks like they were invited to apply again. Important quota up for grabs there.