Holding the Olympics in July seems a terrible idea given where we stand over Covid-19

Should the Olympics be cancelled? Looking at the chaos surrounding the Australian Open tennis tournament (this week 507 players and officials were ordered to isolate after a hotel worker tested positive for Covid-19), it does seem utterly bonkers to stage the Olympics in Tokyo in July.

Unfortunately, Olympic sport is controlled by a bunch of old-school macho men who make remarks like “there is no plan B” when faced with a mutating virus over which they have no control. I refer to Thomas Bach, IOC president, who spouted those very words in March last year as coronavirus swept around the world.

As infections surged and fatalities rose into millions, Bach was forced to eat his words, and the games were reluctantly rescheduled for the first time in their 125-year history. Covid is still here – so should the Tokyo Olympics take place at all? With or without spectators? And at what cost to the population of a country that has yet to start vaccinations? Even last month, Bach was still saying there is “no plan B”.

Like the World Cup and the Australian Open, the Olympics are all about generating cash (via TV) as much as celebrating sporting excellence. In Japan, it’s also about national pride, last year, the then prime minister, Shinzo Abe, claimed the event would be “a celebration of victory over the virus”. In fact, it’s anything but.

A virus can’t be compared to a sport, a battle, or any of the other metaphors so beloved by male politicians – only a lab-made vaccine can take on and hold a virus at bay.

The Tokyo Olympics are now scheduled to start on 23 July, but they will not be a source of national rejoicing – the vast majority of people in Japan (between 80 per cent and 85 per cent) say they would like them postponed or cancelled for good. Vaccination is not due to start in Japan for another week, with the Pfizer vaccine arriving in the country on Friday, and then medical approval needs to be sought.

As for a rollout plan, the Japanese government has decreed that medical workers will take priority, followed by the over-65s, aiming to complete vaccinating those two cohorts by the end of April.

If the UK was offered the chance to host a huge sporting event with that paltry level of protection in the population at large, undoubtedly, most of us would be saying “no thanks” – even though the Olympics (just like the Australian Open) is about making money through advertising, sponsorship and associated marketing events as much as it is about anything so pure and wonderful as hurling a javelin or kicking a ball. (Please remember that Boris Johnson refused to allow the Cheltenham Festival to be cancelled at the start of the pandemic last March, an event attended by over 50,000 people mingling at close quarters.)

Last month, Japan declared a state of emergency in 11 districts, including Tokyo, and has extended that for several more weeks. More than 6,100 people have died from the virus, with total infections around 400,000, increasing at the rate of 2,500 a day. But the macho local dignitaries in charge of planning the Olympics remain bullish – Yasuhiro Yamashita, chair of the Japanese Olympic Committee, dismissed a report in The Times that the games might be postponed again as “wrong and ridiculous”.

Yoshiro Mori (a former prime minister) who heads the Japanese organising committee made the news this week when he complained that increasing the number of women on his committee (out of 25 there are just five) would be a disaster “because they talk too much”. He was later forced to apologise, but his remarks reveal a worrying mindset that is all too common at the higher levels of international sport.

The organising committee has just issued its first version of a “playbook” for international federations and officials intending to attend the event. It does not mandate quarantine on arrival, although visitors must test negative before travel, and then undergo testing every four days. They have to submit an “activity plan” detailing accommodation, locations and method of transport.

Teams are told to avoid public transport. There are plans to keep 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes in a “sanitary bubble” with the catchphrase “Think hygiene”. Competitors will not be allowed to visit tourist areas, shops, bars, restaurants or watch events they are not participating in. Good luck in enforcing all that!

There may not be any spectators because the IOC has not made up its mind – Tokyo could be the first Olympics to take place via television. Sponsors are very worried by the lack of planning for a cancellation. Countries like Israel, Denmark and possibly Australia plan to vaccinate their teams, but that will not necessarily stop the spread of the virus into Japan. To be blunt, Tokyo seems ill-prepared to deal with a virus that is constantly mutating.

Currently, arguments are raging over whether lockdown in the UK should be extended beyond early March, even if primary schools are allowed to reopen. In one corner, business owners argue they face bankruptcy and there will be huge redundancies. In the other, health professionals and scientists say the infection rate must drop further if we ever want to return to normal life. We haven’t even started putting arrivals in quarantine hotels, or issuing vaccination passports.

Sporting events are driven by prestige and the income they generate, which is why participants were allowed to travel at all. In Melbourne, organisers are claiming that the tennis will still start on Monday, although the latest scare has forced the cancellation of warm-up events. A couple of weeks ago, plane-loads of players were placed in isolation in hotels after someone tested positive on arrival.

Sport sees all sorts of rules manipulated to suit organisers and sponsors. Is that justified because high-level sport is a social panacea distracting us from the uncomfortable reality that Covid isn’t going anywhere soon? Why should elite athletes be allowed to travel when the rest of us are stuck at home?