With just less than a year to go for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the buzz in the city is relatively tempered. Unlike Beijing 2008, or indeed the last time Tokyo hosted the Games in 1964, next year’s Olympics are less a débutante’s ball with all its attendant glamour and tremulousness than an elegant dowager’s “At Home.”
The 1964 Olympics had rewrought the Japanese capital from the ashes of the Second World War, symbolising its re-entry onto the world stage. In preparation, Tokyo had undergone one of the most explosive urban transformations in history, including the construction of 10,000 office and residential buildings, 100 km of superhighways, a $55 million monorail from the airport into downtown Tokyo, four new five-star hotels, and a billion-dollar bullet train.
More than five decades later, Japan is the world’s third largest economy, boasting world-beating infrastructure and an iconic cityscape. It is rich and stable, but is also no stranger to travails, having experienced a major economic crash in the 1990s, followed by years of deflation. And so, while it might not have quite as much to prove as it did in 1964, next year’s Olympics are nonetheless an opportunity to showcase the nation’s continuing relevance in a world of more youthful upstarts.
Appropriately the emphasis has been on cost cutting and sustainability. The original design for the new Olympic Stadium by British architect Zaha Hadid was scrapped given its estimated cost of $2 billion. The replacement design by homegrown architect, Kengo Kuma, cost just over half the price. Organisers cut costs in other ways too, shifting events like basketball and equestrianism to existing venues. Among the 43 venues required for the Games, only eight will be new, while 25 will utilise existing infrastructure, and 10 will be temporary constructions.
Accusations of corruption
Driving home the theme of sustainability, the Olympic medals will be made out of metals harvested from discarded smartphones and other consumer electronics. Moreover, the podiums upon which the athletes will stand to receive these medals will also be made from recycled plastic collected from both local households and the ocean. Organisers are aiming to amass 45 tonnes of plastic for about 100 podiums.
Of course, it cannot be the Olympic Games without some melodrama. And Tokyo has not been immune to accusations of corruption, escalating costs and worries of pollution that have become part and parcel of the hosting process. In March, Tsunekazu Takeda, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee and head of the Tokyo bid committee, was forced to resign following accusations of bribery during the 2020 bidding process.
Estimated costs for the Games have also ballooned from an initial $7 billion to $25 billion. And recently open water tests in Tokyo Bay, where Olympic events are scheduled to take place, showed dangerously high levels of E. coli bacteria, probably after insufficiently treated wastewater was released into the bay following heavy rainfall.
There are also worries about a lack of enough tourist infrastructure. Heightened demand could see a shortage of over 10,000 hotel rooms. But by far the biggest concern is over the weather. July and August in Tokyo — the Olympics will be held between 24 July and 9 August — are a period of extreme heat and humidity. Last year, for example, more than 130 people died and 70,000 more were hospitalised due to heat-related issues.
An array of solutions is being put in place. Very early morning starts for marathons have been scheduled. And living up to Japan’s high-tech reputation, a heat-deflecting material will be coated onto the roads in and around Tokyo, supposedly reducing temperatures on the surface by 10%.
Experimentation with some outlandish measures is ongoing, including blasting volunteers with fake snow.
More conventional methods such as installing misting fans and passing out ice packs to spectators and volunteers will also be operationalised. But there are limits to how far the organisers can solve this weather conundrum.
Ultimately the city has to fall back on crossed fingers and toes in the hope that the 2020 summer is a mild one. Regardless of the eventual temperatures, the crowds will be surging.
More than 7.5 million people in Japan registered for the first ticket lottery held in June, making every event massively oversubscribed.
Pallavi Aiyar is a journalist based in Tokyo
