The Olympics should be postponed. If they aren't, Canada isn't going
As the coronavirus spreads, more and more people agree: the Olympics shouldn't happen in July
Hi everyone.
It was another week, that’s for sure. I hope you’re all hanging in there.
This issue looks at one topic: the 2020 Olympic Games. Should they even happen? What would it take to postpone them? It’s become a dominant story in sports over the past week, and more and more athletes and official governing bodies are speaking out in favour of postponement.
And the week ended with a MAJOR announcement breaking on Sunday night: if the Games are not postponed, Canada will not be sending a team.
Thanks for reading. If you want to reach out, you can email me at runthenorthnews@gmail.com.
Stay safe and stay inside everyone.
— Erin @ Run the North
The case for postponing the Olympics
The Olympics are supposed to be from July 24 to August 9 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo bid on and were awarded these Games in 2013. That’s seven years of hard work (more if you count the bid process) dedicated to executing one of the biggest, most complex, most expensive events on the planet.
And we should postpone them.
I’m going to break down all the reasons the Games should be postponed.
But first: if they aren’t postponed, Canada isn’t going.
Canada will not send a team to the 2020 Olympics if they happen this summer
Canada will not be sending a team to the Olympic if they take place this summer.
Canada — which includes the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, the Athletes’ Commissions, the national sports organizations involves with the Olympics and the Government of Canada — wants the Games postponed.
The COC and CPC urgently call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to postpone the Games for one year and we offer them our full support in helping navigate all the complexities that rescheduling the Games will bring. While we recognize the inherent complexities around a postponement, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our athletes and the world community.
This is not solely about athlete health — it is about public health. With COVID-19 and the associated risks, it is not safe for our athletes, and the health and safety of their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training towards these Games. In fact, it runs counter to the public health advice which we urge all Canadians to follow.
Canada is the first country to make such a statement, but they aren’t alone in supporting a postponement. It looks like Australia told its athletes to prepare for a 2021 Games:
Other countries have been making this case too, but have yet to make such public declarations:
Why should the Games be postponed?
Why would Canada make such a big statement? And why should the Games be postponed?
Let’s break it down.
1. Athletes can’t train
Athletes, just like us, are in various stages of self-isolation or social distancing. Venues are closed. Gyms are closed. I’m making do with a fitness app and single kettlebell, how can the world’s best athletes get in Olympic-level shape without access to the venues where they can train their best?
CBC Sports rounded up several social media posts from athletes sharing how they are making it work.
It has been nine days since Kylie Masse’s last swim. The two-time world champion doesn’t know when she’ll be able to get back in the pool for her next.
Catharine Pendrel is on Day 7 of self-isolation at her home in Kamloops, B.C., where her husband stocked the fridge with groceries and the cupboard with toilet paper — a reasonable amount, she says. Pendrel got back from California earlier than planned, since her mountain biking races were cancelled.
On Monday, Reid Coolsaet logged a 31-kilometre run in Hamilton, Ont., a training session he assessed as “just alright,” partly because of the wind, partly because he was tired from solid training the week prior. And partly because, he says, “this was my first workout with the realization that almost all the marathons are cancelled.”
Some more examples: Training camps in Kenya are closed, Hurdler Sage Watson is box jumping on barrels of hay, marathoner Dayna Pidhoresky is cycling in her house, 10,000m runner Natasha Wodak bought a pylo box and is working out in her basement, and trampolinist Rosie McLennan is using her house’s front walk.
This isn’t a Rocky montage. This is the Olympics. And while I have so much respect for these athletes doing what they can, an organization with billions of dollars should not be putting the athletes that make what they organize special in this situation.
2. Athletes can’t qualify
Everything is getting cancelled, including Olympic qualifier tournaments and races and events where athletes can earn valuable points to help their international rankings.
With no opportunities to qualify for the Games, how can countries fairly pick their teams?
According to CBC Sports, 43 percent of the entire Olympic field has not been set yet, including most track, swimming and gymnastic sports — the most popular of the Olympic sports.
With more and more events getting cancelled, filling the field gets more complicated and less fair. From CBC Sports:
But the IOC suggested that other methods might have to be used — including relying on historical performances and international rankings.
Making that more difficult is the continued withering of the pre-Olympic schedule. Two key international gymnastics meets have already been scrubbed, and on Tuesday, the Diamond League, which draws top track stars from across the globe, announced it was postponing three events in April and May.
3. Athletes can’t get the support they need
No physiotherapy appointments. No massage therapy appointments. No chiropractor appointments. As Natasha Wodak pointed out on Twitter, without this support, even if athletes can train, how can they prevent injuries and ensure they are in the best possible shape for the Games?
4. Drug testing is a mess right now
Regular, consistent drug testing is a cornerstone for clean sport. Athletes get tested two ways: 1) at events and 2) randomly, when officials come to the homes of athletes at unspecified times.
If events are cancelled, tests aren’t happening there.
And with social distancing rules, random drug testing can’t really happen in a regimented, complete way. And if it does, it risks spreading the virus.
Here’s an example from the New York Times about how this process is getting impacted by COVID-19:
WBA welterweight boxing champion Alexander Besputin tested positive in December after a title fight in Monaco. A second sample was due to be tested in France on Tuesday but that was canceled amid the virus outbreak, he told Russian state news agency Tass. Besputin, a Russian who fights out of California, denies any wrongdoing.
If we can’t test adequately, how can we feel confident the 2020 Games will be clean?
5. We could still be in an international public health nightmare in July
No one really knows what could happen with the virus, but several models posit that we will not be out of the woods by July.
They also have a model that sees the virus peaking in North America in July.
I want to note that we don’t know what is going to happen or how long this will last. These are models, and there isn’t enough data to put forth a single probable outcome yet. But it’s entirely likely this pandemic can and will last until the Olympics are set to start on July 24.
6. It will feel tone deaf
Remember in 2012 when New York almost didn’t cancel the marathon right after Hurricane Sandy? When people didn’t have power, had lost their homes, had died? The marathon felt like a tone-deaf waste of time and resources. They eventually cancelled it, but it left athletes scrambling, many citizens upset and the race with egg on its face.
We don’t know where the world will be in July, but we could see the Olympics in that situation times a million if countries are still suffering.
At best, this is over by then and we are like ,“It’s too bad we cancelled the Olympics. Things are OK now. Oh well, Tokyo 2021 is going to be great.”
At worst, millions will be dead, athletes won’t feel safe travelling because the pandemic is still raging and this opulent display of sport will be in our faces while we mourn those we have lost and try to keep those who are suffering alive and safe. That’s not a good look.
Other athletes and governing bodies support postponement
The Canadian government and various Olympic organizations aren’t the only ones who support postponement. It became a major issue over the course of the week.
It started when Canadian hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser was one of the first prominent athletes to speak out in support of postponing the Games.
Several opinion pieces in support of postponing the games were published this week, including in the New York Times and the Associated Press.
The American body that governs track & field, USATF, is publicly supporting a postponement of the Games.
Even athletes in Japan, the host county, were speaking out. From the New York Times:
There were signs of pressure within Japan, with a member of its Olympic committee coming out in favour of postponing the Games.
“Opening the Olympics at a time when athletes could not train as much as they wanted to runs counter to the motto of ‘athletes first,’” Kaori Yamaguchi, a member of the Japanese Olympic committee board who won a bronze medal in judo in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun. “The Games should be postponed.”
Sebastian Coe, the head of World Athletics, wrote a letter to the IOC in support of postponement:
Canada isn’t alone. And over the new few weeks, I’m sure we will see more organizations and athletes add their voices to this chorus.
So why haven’t they done it yet?
I can only speculate, but I have three thoughts: logistics, money and identity.
Logistics
The Olympics need to work around the seasons of professional sports, like the NBA, the WNBA, the PGA and LPGA, the tennis circuit and the cycling circuit. Many of these organizations make concessions and rearrange schedules so their athletes can go to the Olympics.
They also need to work around the every-other-year model of the world championships for swimming and track and field. They are held in odd-number years: 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and so on. So if you move the Olympics to 2021, those championships will get compromised or cancelled.
And if they postpone it, what does the broadcast schedule look like? It’s already a nightmare with all the other cancellations.
Broadcasters and marketers are fretting about a sports calendar already upended by cancellations and postponements involving nearly every other league and major event in the world — which, among other challenges, would make it difficult for marquee athletes like N.B.A. superstars to come to Tokyo. Even NBC, the American broadcaster that has great sway with the organizers, has prepared for the possibility that the Games will be shifted to next year or farther down the road, by taking out the necessary insurance protections, though it has yet to make any major logistical preparations.
They also need to work around Japan’s weather: it’s HOT in the summer. And if you wait too long, say October, it’s typhoon season, and it’s not safe to host such a large-scale event. What timing gets us past the COVID-19 pandemic, deals with the issues outlined about and is in a climate season that’s conducive to a summer Olympics?
Finally, what logistical considerations need to be made for the qualifying process? What extensions should be made? Will qualified athletes keep their spots? When they finally make the announcement, all this needs to be laid out.
Money
It costs A LOT to put on the Games. And postponing it means spending even more money.
Officially, Japan is spending $12.6 billion US to organize the Olympics, but there are estimates that the cost is twice that — if not more.
It is also estimated that about 73 per cent of the IOC's $5.7-billion US income in a four-year Olympic cycle comes from broadcast rights.
There is also A LOT of money tied up in sponsorships, TV deals and commercial revenue. And postponing it means possibly losing some of that money.
The I.O.C. derives roughly half of its revenues from its media partners, and about 75 percent of those come from NBC, which in 2014 agreed to pay $7.75 billion for all the U.S. media rights to the Olympics through 2032. (That is an average of $1.29 billion for each Games from 2022 to 2032, 17 percent more than the average fee of $1.1 billion the NBC committed for the 2014-2020 Games.)
That amount of money doesn’t make postponement impossible. But it does increase the pressure of getting it right.
Identity
This stat from sports journalist Ben Fischer is sobering:
Most athletes get one shot. If we cancel or move the Games, how many of these athletes will go from aspiring Olympians to someone who could have made the Olympics once, but never did?
Canadian journalist and Olympian Anson Henry has been vocal about the importance of the Olympics to lesser-known athletes (valid):
And about how moving the Olympics wouldn’t make it the Olympics anymore (less valid):
If the Olympics becomes a thing that can be cancelled, that can be moved, do they become a thing that isn’t the pinnacle of achievement in sport? What do they become? What do they mean — to athletes, to the world — in a post-pandemic world?
I don’t think this is insurmountable at all — in fact, if all goes well, they could symbolize our global unity and resilience — but it’s definitely a psychological barrier the IOC is grappling with as they make this decision.
There’s also the marketing side of “identity” too: The Games has a logo, has merchandise, has a mascot. Are they throwing all that out and rebranding as Tokyo 2021?
So what will they do?
Despite the local organizing committee and the IOC being adamant for months that the Olympics will go on as planned, it finally seems that the tide is turning.
And with Canada’s big announcement, it feels as though postponement is moving from a possibility being considered to an imminent decision.
On Sunday afternoon (before Canada’s announcement), the news broke that the IOC is giving themselves to mid-April to make a decision about postponing or downsizing the Games and will start working on what that could look like.
You can read the IOC’s full statement here.
IOC president Thomas Bach wrote an open letter to address this:
In this unprecedented crisis we are all united.
Like you, we are very much concerned about what the COVID-19 pandemic is doing to people’s lives. Human lives take precedence over everything, including the staging of the Games. The IOC wants to be part of the solution. Therefore we have made it our leading principle to safeguard the health of everyone involved, and to contribute to containing the virus. I would like to assure you that we will adhere to this in all our decisions concerning the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The IOC is drafting alternative scenarios:
Sources told Reuters on Sunday, however, that Tokyo Games organizers had started drafting possible alternatives to holding the Olympics this summer.
“Finally, we have been asked to make a simulation in case of a postponement,” a source close to the organizing committee who is involved in drafting the scenarios said.
“We are making alternative plans — plan B, C, D — looking at different postponement time-frames,” said the official, adding the scenarios included cost estimates for different delays.
We’ll find out in a month what scenario they choose, and if Canada will be there.
A reminder to keep social distancing, and that this is going to take a while
It feels demoralizing right now. Cases are going up. There’s news story after news story that we are going to run out of hospital beds, out of masks, out of ventilators. And we might.
But we need to remember: We won’t see the effects of what we are doing right now for another week or two. And even then, it won’t go away right away.
As for how long this is going to take? A long time, according to CBC Health:
“An outbreak is not over until you have two incubation periods without any new incident cases,” said Upshur. Each incubation period is 14 days.
If there was ever a time to make a morbid 28 Days Later joke, this is it.
But if there was ever a time to keep on moving forward, to do our part, this is it.
This is going to be the longest, hardest marathon we’ve ever run. And we can do it.
That’s it for this week.
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Thanks so much for reading. Keep on running — alone.
I’ll see you next week.