Massacres, doping and overspending have marred Games over the years and this time it is Covid that hangs over Tokyo 2020
As it is now, so it has always been. Eighteen months after the first modern Olympic Games, at Athens in 1896, the entire organising committee resigned en masse because they thought the job was impossible. The country was, in the phrase of the prime minister, Charilaos Trikoupis, “regretfully bankrupt”. He told the fledgling International Olympic Committee that the economic situation meant there was no way the Games could go ahead. The IOC’s founder, Pierre de Coubertin, heard but didn’t listen. Instead he got to work, wheedling, cajoling, politicking, pushing ahead regardless.
Related: Mohamed Sbihi to make history as Team GB’s first Muslim Olympic flagbearer
Written by Andy Bull in Tokyo
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/22/tokyo-waits-and-the-world-watches-as-ioc-gambles-on-the-games-again-olympics-2020 under the title “Tokyo waits and the world watches as IOC gambles on the Games again | Andy Bull”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
