The Olympics shouldn’t be happening during a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc across the globe, but we’re well past the point of no return on that, so on we go — just knowing that COVID-19 is going to be as prominent at the Tokyo Games as Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky.
Japan’s government is putting the capital under a state of emergency, as coronavirus continues a resurgence there, with new daily cases nearing 1,000 — two weeks before the start of the Olympics. Tokyo already has been in and out of a state of emergency three times during the pandemic.
Updated, July 8, 2021, at 10:15 a.m. EDT: The latest development means that the Olympics will be contested in front of empty seats, but the IOC will still get its TV money, NBC will still get its ad money, and Tokyo will still have the legacy of twice selling out its citizens to host the international festival of grift.
They’ll just plow through and celebrate the Games as a success regardless of how it all plays out. The opening and closing ceremonies will happen, and so will most, if not all, of the scheduled events. All the athletes who compete will have earned their mettle, and/or medals, as Olympians, and they’re the only ones worth celebrating in any of this.
The hope just has to be that those athletes can be kept safe, which is no small task, as we’ve seen in domestic sports with N.C. State having to bow out of the College World Series and Chris Paul missing time in the NBA playoffs after testing positive for COVID-19 despite having been vaccinated. In South America, players and coaches have been in and out of Copa America throughout the course of the tournament in Brazil.
Money won. We now just have to hope that the Olympics go off without tragedy striking. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person if you watch and enjoy the Games. The whole thing just stinks.