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IOC head Bach visits Fukushima with Abe

5 Comments
By Mayuko Ono and Jack Tarrant

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Watching Bach on tv last night certainly creeped me out a little.

Here he was being presented as a "kind of champion of the people", to hundreds of cheering, flag waving kids who actually got very emotional as he shook hands and spoke to them. A page right out of "The book on Royal Visits".

I thought it all a little strange as he's essentially just a bureaucrat (top) for a business enterprise and these kids wouldn't know him from the proverbial bar of. Orchestrated excitement.

And lil' Abe(ner) was there basking in the foto op glory.

But what especially irks me with all of this (and I'm a confessed sports tragic), is the blatant use of the 2011 tragedy to score points. For Bach - see the olympics does help the world & me (my job) and for Abe - see the olympics does help me (my job).

No one would deny there are social benefits to be had from such an event, but when I read gunk like this -

"........“We are very much impressed about the great progress, the reconstruction and also the mental recovery that the population has made in Fukushima,” Bach told Abe.

“We are very happy that in this recovery, in this psychological recovery in particular, sport has played an important role......."

How on earth does Bach know what from what? Great Progress???  Reconstruction??? Mental Recovery???

How much greater would the progress, reconstruction & recovery had been if genuine concern for the plight of all was shown and the Olympic ¥Trillions were spent in Tohoku.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Definition of irony: IOC calling for a "clean" Olympics

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Its a brilliant way to help Fukushima , not easy to make a recovery from a leak, not to mention the huge loss of life that preceded it, yet through wind farms, robotic research, hard work and now sport, the image is returning and the wounds healing.

Well done to all concerned, it certainly is within the Olympic Spirit to help achieve this.

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

It’s not such a brilliant idea to have young people placed in a dangerous environment where the exposure to toxic radioactivity is real!

What does it prove to hold events in such a place?

3 ( +5 / -2 )

What about Miyagio and Iwate Prefectures as that is where the vast majority of deaths (by magnitudes more than Fukushima) were from the Tohuku earthquake

... Bach spouting Fukushima shows his lack of knowledge of the recovery.

Wish they would talk more honestly about what Olympic legacy they are leaving after all this money spent and extra resources diverted to the Olympics instead of to those that needed it.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

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