Introduction

First of all, YouTube checking

VTR: The #Tokyo2020 moments that gave us hope. (2:19 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ukU4Ym0vEE

This VTR reflects the brilliant performance of the Olympians. However, in order to accurately evaluate the Tokyo Olympic Games, the impacts of both light and dark (good and bad) should be described. In this paper, this stand point should be kept as much as possible. Also, it is said that “Sport is a mirror of the world”. bIn considering the significance of the Tokyo 2020 Games, it is necessary to evaluate the problems both of the international community and of the Japanese society surrounding the Tokyo 2020 Games.

1. International society

Under the pandemic of the new coronavirus, the international community has exposed disparities in the health and medical environment all over the world due to the national particularism displayed in the securement of vaccines exclusively. Under such circumstances, there was a disparity in the training opportunities for the Olympic Games and the situation was such that qualifying competitions could not be held sufficiently. With an insufficient response to the pandemic and vaccination system of UN and WHO, was it sufficient that the IOC tried to require all Olympians be vaccinated?

2. Japanese society

Japanese society has been overwhelmed by delays in responding to the coronavirus, the increase in the number of infected people nationwide, the medical crisis due to the delay in vaccination, the distrust of the people for the Japanese government, the anxiety about infection, and by the growing opposition to hosting the Olympic Games in this social situation. Because of the decisions taken, the non-democratic actions of Japanese government became a big issue. Furthermore, a lower sensitivity towards human rights in Japanese society was revealed, such as the resignation of former TOCOG President Yoshiro Mori for his remarks on gender issues and the words and conduct of the production team at the Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo Games.

Under these circumstances of the international community and Japanese society, the Tokyo 2020 Games highlighted many problems facing the world and Japan. Based on this recognition, I would like to look back on the significance of the Tokyo 2020 Games. For this purpose, it seems the following frame of reference is important. However, although the mention to the significance tends to focus only on the light side, it must be recognised that the shadow (dark) side – the negative one – also exists.

1. It is necessary to compare the actual events with the vision of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

2. Frame of reference criteria are needed for the comparison. For this purpose, the philosophy of “Olympism” is used as a frame of reference, and the three elements, that is, “sports, culture, and environment”, which are the three pillars of Olympism, and “contribution to the construction of the peaceful world”, which is the ultimate goal of Olympism, are the core features of this frame of reference.

1. TOKYO 2020 Games Vision¹

“Sport has the power to change the world and our future. The Tokyo 1964 Games completely transformed Japan.”

Three core concepts

1) Achieving Personal Best: “Striving for your personal best”

2) Unity in Diversity: “Accepting one another”

3) Connecting to Tomorrow: “Passing on Legacy for the future”

An introduction of the various new initiatives being undertaken to ensure the Tokyo 2020 Games are the most innovative in history, bringing about positive reform to the world.

According to these visions and concepts of Tokyo Games, how can we evaluate them now? How did the Tokyo 2020 Games change Japanese society and the future? Can it be evaluated immediately? Also, regarding the three concepts of the Games, 1) Did everyone achieve their best? 2) How can the accomplishment of the goal of “Unity in diversity” be evaluated? What kind of situation does “Unity” mean and how can it be evaluated? 3) “Connecting to Tomorrow” cannot be judged now immediately, but how many years ahead will it be able to be judged?

According to these questions, at this early point, it seems that it is still difficult to evaluate the significance of the vision and the three concepts of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

2. Olympism as a frame of reference

Olympism is an educational and peaceful philosophy that “creates a human being who is physically and mentally balanced whole through sports, culture, and art, and ultimately contributes to the world peace.” As mentioned already, the three pillars of Olympism are “sports, culture and environment”. It is a peace movement that develops the Olympic Movement based on these three pillars and ultimately contributes to the “realisation of a peaceful world.” So, let’s take a look at the various situations under the pandemic of the Tokyo 2020 Games based on these four items.

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1) Sports

As for the participants of the Tokyo 2020 Games, 11,092 athletes from 205 NOCs of countries or regions participated and competed in 33 events. Competitiveness has improved in many countries and regions, with 93 NOCs winning medals and 66 NOCs winning gold medals. Due to the increase of people infected with coronavirus, most of the venues had no audience. The number of spectators was 43,300, which was 96.5% fewer than planned. The Tokyo Games may have been successful as a sports competition, but it could be criticised for the high cost of holding it at 1,640 billion yen (about 15 billion dollars).

Of the five events introduced from the Tokyo Games, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing are events introduced to capture the interest of the young generation in sports. Among them, skateboarding was highly praised by the media as a street culture that brought a new wind to the Olympic Games. This is because the young generation’s style of pursuing fun in skateboarding, regardless of nationality or victory or defeat, was highly praised. Athletes who challenge traditional Olympic sports are expected to win medals for their country and their families, and sometimes they have been crushed by the overbearing pressure. It is said that these young athletes remind us that a fundamental principle of sports is to enjoy them as play and distraction.

However, while the skateboarding competition may have had the same style of play as other regular skateboarding competitions, was it a performance style based on Olympism? It seems that it is necessary to reconsider whether their playing attitude was based on Olympism. We have to remember such as “It is only a sport, but be based on Olympism”.

The Sports Initiation Programme was planned to be used to provide first-hand experience to spectators so that children would be introduced to sports they did not know well. However, it was canceled due to the no spectator policy and from the viewpoint of infection control. This important route to introduce the Japanese young generation to new sports was regrettably restricted to small TV views.

2) Culture

The “Cultural Programme” is one of the important Olympic programmes for the harmonious growth of athletes, for spectators from all over the world, and for Japanese children. There is also a cultural programme that has been held for five years since the end of the 2016 Rio Games. In 2021, the year of the Games, the TOKYO 2020 NIPPON FESTIVAL was held under the title of “Blooming of Culture”. This was broadly divided into programmes sponsored by the Organising Committee and programmes co-hosted by the Organising Committee. The sponsored programmes are “Mocco” aimed at connecting the disaster areas in Tohoku with Tokyo and the world, “Wassai” singing and dancing in a circle, and “ONE-Our NewEpisode: MAZEKOZE Island tour” sending a message toward the realisation of inclusive society. As for the co-hosted programmes, 30 programmes were held in various districts of Japan, including before and after the Games, with the aim of “disseminating the culture and art that Japan is proud of both domestically and internationally”. Originally, more cultural programmes were held in various areas in Japan, aiming to increase inbound tourism by disseminating Japanese culture and promoting tourism. However, many programmes have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Similarly, cross-cultural exchange programmes at public viewing venues and “Host Town” exchange events where foreign teams are welcomed into precamps for cultural exchange were not be able to interact face-to-face to prevent infection. Many events were canceled or held online. The Olympic education programme centered on elementary and junior high schools was also restricted from watching the Games in person and from face-to-face learning, and was forced to shift to online delivery or was canceled. It must be said that the Tokyo Games were a one-winged Olympic Games because the cultural programme for a holistic human education, which combines sports and artistic qualities, which Coubertin emphasised, could hardly be held.

3) Environment

The use of hydrogen energy, which is considered as a future energy for carbon dioxide reduction, was developed mainly by TOYOTA Company. The lights of the 2nd cauldron were also fueled by hydrogen gas. Self-driving mobile vehicles were also prepared for the Olympic Village. From a global perspective, this is a unique challenge of Japan compared to the trend to the electric vehicles in the mobility world. However, even in the transition to electric energy, it is necessary to reexamine what resources are used to generate the original electricity. What kind of energy resources will be utilised as part of the Olympic Movement will continue to be a big issue.

At the Tokyo 2020 Games, problems such as food disposal and medical equipment disposal were raised. The main reason was that the number of volunteers was drastically reduced due to the spread of the infection, and the readjustment of their lunch boxes was inadequate. The problem was lack of consideration and responsibility of the TOCOG.

In terms of recycling of the 3Rs, the medals awarded to the athletes were made from the recycling of home appliances called “urban mines” such as mobile phones and PCs. The podium was also a recycling of waste plastic. The uniforms of volunteers were also made from recycled fibers, but many volunteers declined due to no spectators and anxiety to the coronavirus infection, leaving many uniforms left over.

4) Peace

The “Olympic Truce” at the Tokyo Games was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in 2019. The actual Olympic Truce Resolution lasted about 2.5 months from one week before the opening of the Olympic Village to one week after the closing of the Paralympic Olympic Village. However, in the meantime, the conflicts arose with the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the “Olympic Truce Resolution” was not complied with in this Games too, including the United States, which agreed with the Truce Resolution of UN. Before the opening ceremony, it is customary for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to make an “appeal for observing the Olympic Truce.” Regrettably, the Japanese media did not cover it at all. The opening ceremony had no spectators, so the significance of this Olympic Truce Resolution was not conveyed to the Japanese people.

A wooden “Truce Mural” was set up in the Olympic Village to commemorate the Japanese wooden culture, and a signing ceremony was held on 19 July. Although this is an important customary ceremony in the Olympic Village regardless of the pandemic, the Japanese media did not report it at all. The Japanese view of the Olympics is largely influenced by the media, but the media does not pay attention to the Olympic peace movement. It is important for the media to keep track of who left what kind of message and how it can be used for peace education in the future. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the JOC should show a policy on how to utilise this “Truce Mural” for future Olympic education.

Due to the spread of the coronavirus, the “Torch Relay” was almost completely canceled on public roads, and it became impossible to view and support it along the road. Even so, the convoys of advertising of the four official sponsors of the Torch Relay was criticised in various places. From the planning stage, the Torch Relay in Japan was planned with an inbound aim, such as visiting famous locations and tourist spots in various parts of Japan and appointing celebrities and entertainers as torchbearers. The government also had the intention of becoming a tourism-oriented country, and the message relay of peace, which was the main purpose of the torch relay, was not well recognised. Unfortunately, it also became impossible for children to participate in the Torch Relay event in many places.

At the Opening Ceremony, the Olympic Charter includes the “symbolic release of doves”, which symbolises the Olympics as a peace-seeking movement. In this time as well, according to the Olympic Charter, white doves were shown flying on projection screens and a large number of Orizuru were flying in the air. These were performed regardless of the pandemic, but unfortunately it was not the case that the message of peace seeking was fully explained in the TV broadcast. The Tokyo Organising Committee has developed its own peaceseeking programme called “PEACE ORIZURU”. This is to fold “Orizuru”, which is well known as a symbol of peace in Japanese society, write a peace message on its wings, upload it on SNS such as Instagram, and try to share it in the virtual world. Five Olympic-coloured origami papers with the Tokyo Games emblem printed on them are available for download from the TOCOG website. However, regrettably, there is no origami paper with the Paralympic emblem. Because the period to be observed in the Olympic Truce Resolution included the Paralympic Games, TOCOG should have arranged the Paralympic version.

The Organising Committee has set up the “Paralympic Mural” in the Paralympic Olympic Village. The conventional mural was named as “Mural in favour of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, but the name was changed to “Paralympic Mural” for this Tokyo Games² . Neither the IPC nor the TOCOG have specified the reason for the name change, but this mural includes support for the SDGs of UN. Has the Olympic truce been forgotten? Above all, Japanese media did not report anything about this “Paralympic Mural” sign ceremony, as well.

Following what happened at the 2016 Rio Games, a refugee Olympic team was formed at the Tokyo Games. Twenty-nine athletes from 11 countries entered the opening ceremony following the Greek delegation. According to UN News, the IOC has supported 56 promising athletes as refugee athlete scholarship students for the Tokyo Games. The final representative athletes included 29 people. The countries of origin are nine from Syria, five from Iran, four from South Sudan, three from Afghanistan, and the rest are from Eretria, Iraq, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Sudan and Venezuela.³ It can be said that the IOC guarantees the right to play sports, even for refugees. Regrettably, Japanese people couldn’t see their performance in person because of the no audience policy.

The number of LGBT players coming out has increased since the Rio Games, but at the Tokyo Games it has increased significantly to 182. Article 6 of the fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter was amended in 2014, showing a major change in the IOC and the Olympic world that does not allow any discrimination, including sexual orientation. There are 32 LGBTQ players who have won medals, and many are active. However, this does not include any Japanese athletes. This also shows the gap with the global standard of Japanese society, which was shown by the opposition of the Liberal Democratic Party to submit the “LGBT Equality Law (tentative name)” to the Japanese Diet even before the Tokyo Games.

Article 50 of the Olympic Charter has for many years banned Olympians from protesting racial discrimination and human rights violations at the Olympic venues and awards ceremonies. In recent years, the IOC has been reconsidering this issue and researching by the Athletes Commission of IOC according to the request of many athletes. As a result, the IOC eased the regulation in the Tokyo Games except for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and awards ceremonies. Then some teams, including the Japanese women’s soccer team, protested human rights violations by kneeling before the beginning of their soccer games. Such protests should be considered a human rights movement rather than a political propaganda, and it seems that Article 50 of the Olympic Charter will soon need to be amended. This peace-seeking movement is not just a movement for “passive peace” without wars and conflicts, but also a seeking for “positive peace” movement that guarantees human rights, human dignity, and freedom. Because it is nothing but a movement to leave “Human Legacy”, both the IOC and Japan government should attach importance to this Human Legacy.

3. Finally: Significance of other Tokyo 2020 Games

1) Responsibility of hosting the Games vs conflicts and divisions of Japanese opinion

In the pandemic, the TOCOG was entrusted by the IOC with the expectation of hosting the Olympic Games and welcoming athletes from around the world, despite much opposition from the Japanese people. However, TOCOG and the Japanese government forced the Games to be held. As a result, many messages of gratitude and appreciation were heard from Olympians and related parties around the world. In that sense, Japan and Tokyo Government have fulfilled their responsibilities as host countries and host cities of the Olympic Games. This will also increase the national pride in a sense. However, there was much opposition in Japan regarding the hosting of the Olympic Games, and it can be said that these conflicts of opinion caused division in Japanese society. These divisions include the evaluation of the Olympic Games, health treatment, and economic policies. As a result, it led to the collapse of the Suga administration of the Japanese government. In addition, the “Reconstruction Olympics for the Tohoku,” which has been emphasised since the bidding stage, was not actually reflected in real support for the Tsunami disaster-stricken areas in the northern area of Japan, and it seems that it was used just as a slogan for the bidding race.

2) Paradoxical perception of human rights

Yoshiro Mori, former president of the TOCOG, was forced to resign in March 2021, due to his conduct of discrimination against women. And then, the treatment of his successor revealed an old boy’s system that was operating in a closed room in Japanese society. In addition, because the core members involved in producing the opening ceremony also had words and conducts that violated human rights, they had to resign. As seen in these criticisms of human rights, it can be said that it is significant that the public’s awareness of gender equality has increased in Japan. However, even though this criticism has improved the gender ratio of the officers of the TOCOG and JOC, it is necessary to continue to understand human rights as a legacy, as well as to change behaviour and conduct resulting in a better social system.

3) Recognition that the Japanese who loved the Olympics is in reality the Japanese who loved medals

In recent years, the number of accesses to the OCOG’s official website from Japan has been the highest in the world for every version of the Olympic Games. It is well known around the world that the Japanese people like the Olympics. However, even in this Tokyo Games, despite the negative reports, the media coverage turned to focus to the medal rush of Japanese athletes with no scruple, when the Games began, even though more than 70% of the opinions of the people were in opposition to, or for cancellation of the Games. More than half of the Japanese people agreed with hosting events after the Games. This proved that the truth behind the Japanese who loved the Olympics was that they were actually Japanese who loved medals and medallists.

However, in this pandemic, there was a trend to reconsider the significance of hosting the Olympic Games in Japan, and it is encouraging that many discussions were held including the original nature of the Olympic Games and what it should be in the future. In response to this trend, hopefully the Olympic advocates will be truly based on the understanding of Olympism. Without it, the movement to invite the 2030 Winter Olympic Games to Sapporo City would not be able to gain a fundamental understanding in Japan.

4) Incomplete Olympic education and international exchange

Due to the pandemic, all Japanese schools were also closed at the beginning of 2020. As a result, many schools have run out of time for Olympic and Paralympic education to supplement their regular studies. Moreover, because of the no spectator policy, except for a few schools, many school children could not watch the live competitions as a school event and lost an important opportunity to utilise these various experiences in the future.

In addition, though local governments had planned to welcome foreign athletes as Host Towns in advance training camps and to interact with each other after the Games, they had to cancel most of their projects and to limit their contacts to online exchanges. Exceptionally, although there were a few children who could watch the Games in rural areas, the number was too small. Nevertheless, while local citizens had limited opportunities for cross-cultural exchange with foreign athletes supporting them together with children, they will try to continue to use the online exchanges to become one of the legacies of cross-cultural mutual understanding.

As the final comment, it can be said that it was possible to have a sports competition at the Tokyo 2020 Games, but it should take a little more time to verify whether it was an Olympism-based Games. I hope that this Tokyo 2020 Games will be evaluated in the future as the start of a new Olympic Games style. Japanese people learned many things by hosting Games under this pandemic, but even so, it can be said that it ended up paying tuition fees that were too high.

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MASUMOTO Naofumi, "Faster– Higher – Stronger / Together", in: K. Georgiadis(ed.), Olympic Games and the Pandemic: Opportunities,Challenges and Changes , 61th International Session for Young Participants(Ancient Olympia, 17-23/09/2021), International Olympic Academy, Athens, 2022, pp.47-58.

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