After virus-hit Olympics, public split over future Games in Japan

Potential headlines:

— Nearly two-thirds of Japanese public not opposed to hosting Olympics again (36.3%+ 27.7%)

—Nearly two-thirds of Japanese public not supportive of hosting Olympics again (36.0% + 27.7%)

A bloated, overrated, waste of everyone’s time, give me the World Cup over an olympics every time..

Political and commercial event "Tokyo 2020" deprived many medical workers from general citizen, it caused shortage of medical resource at society, many corona virus patients cannot even hospitalize, part of them have died one after another at home.

Corona virus new cases in Japan has rised rapidly from opening ceremony of Olympics.

About 100 thousands corona virus patients cannot yet hospitalize in whole Japan.

Besides, cost over 4 times of initial plan has still increased, nobody knows how much does total cost.

And, "typical Japan" that nobody takes responsibility will be repeated.

Never again.

I'm sure most Japanese citizens against holding Olympics in the future are due to the wasted tax money and not covid-like viruses.

The spread of COVID-19 posed a daunting challenge to the organizers who ran the Olympics from July 23 to Aug 8 despite public opposition and concern that it would become a superspreader event. Foreign spectators were barred.

The recent data analysis suggests no direct link.

Tokyo Olympics Didn’t Worsen Covid-19 Spread, Data Suggest

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tokyo-olympics-didnt-worsen-covid-19-spread-data-suggest-11631700000

Rather than "safe & secure" public health issue, the local Japanese residents were angry and frustrated mostly because of Olympic exceptionalism and privilege at large expense of wider public interest and fair treatment.

I did read that no host city has made money since Barcelona so there’s certainly no financial incentive to host it. Also, it’ll be decades till Japan gets another chance so what’s the point of this questionnaire now?

We shouldn't make any effort or promotion to host another unless begged by the IOC. I'd also suggest games with zero yen public spending by the host city & country.

Conduct the survey again after all the costs are tallied up and people find out how much they will be paying in taxes to cover this overblown dog and pony show, and ask them again when they see the stadiums and venues in their prefectures end up sucking up resources and money just to keep them viable. Check out last Saturday's TBS 報道特集, there was a good expose on this very topic.

@Newgirlintown

"I did read that no host city has made money since Barcelona so there’s certainly no financial incentive to host it. Also, it’ll be decades till Japan gets another chance so what’s the point of this questionnaire now?"

Not decades; 9 years. Sapporo is the leading bidder for the 2030 Winter Olympics.

Newgirlintown 07:24 am JST

I did read that no host city has made money since Barcelona so there’s certainly no financial incentive to host it. 

“As of 2016, Los Angeles is the only host city that realized a profit from the games, mostly because the required infrastructure already existed.”

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/092416/what-economic-impact-hosting-olympics.asp

this is hardly the time to give Japanese people a questionnaire about holding another Olympics, now is it.

Sapporo has an active bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics and without Covid-19 would have been a likely winner. The 2032 Summer Olympics host has already been announced and it is likely Sapporo would have been announced too if not for Covid and a de facto "don't mention the Winter Olympics" protocol in force due to proposed boycotts of Beijing.

However, "safe and secure" the Tokyo Olympics were, they were still at least 250% overbudget, in a country with 29% seniors and 250% or whatever national debt to GDP. 250% overbudget is an epic fail.

I'll bet any money that these respondents who said it was a good idea to hold the games, would have had a different answer if Japan hadn't outdid itself in the overall medals count.

THAT has a lot to do with how people think about the success or not of the games. That is my opinion.

Why does any of this matter now? It’s happened. Finished. Move on to other bad decisions made by the Japanese Government.

we know there’s an abundance of that

It rarely matters what the public thinks. If some politician thinks about putting a bid-in, they'll first create an exploratory committee and then put a bid forward without any public say in the matter. Its all about corporate interest, not public.

A private 'think tank' that's mission is to sway public opinion thru the use of onerous surveys - which most resembles propaganda. Over 80% of the public were opposed to the games and that figure was not mitigated by the arrival of the games - that was the posit of the IOC, once the games commenced there would be an outpouring of support among the populous and it did not happen.

Lacking evidence to the contrary, SARSCoV-2 did increase during the Games and within two weeks after its completion - look at the provided photograph for a clue and assess 'social distancing' among the crowd or crowded.

The Olympic games are a sybarite indulgence by a privileged set of the elite and a meaningless spectacle draped with all manner of nonsense - it is basically corporate and a tool for the likes of Nike, IOC, NBCUniversal and other profiteering entities in the sports entertainment and merchandising industries. The costs of the extravaganza are borne by the host nation, in this particular instance north of 25 billion dollars or 2.5 trillion yen.

The games more resemble gladiatorial contests than the ancient Greek games, with its pompa entering the arena, led by lictors bearing fasces and preparing to engage in contested rivalries by country with its attendant stagecraft, entertainment & bravado accompanied my an apropos soundtrack and further 'big name' entrainment in the form of a musical act. It is crass and vulgar and reflects the obvious mores of the 21st century - all intended to profit the IOC.

You have to remember that as you age you are less likely to show interest in big events like the Olympics. Certainly not in attending them. Japan has an aging population. Those poll results expose the thinking of old people, "hey you, get off my lawn"! If the same poll were parsed into age groups you would see that most young and middle aged people (who would actually attend the Olympics) would be in favor.

Oh yeah one more thing. Japan probably won't get the Olympics for another 20 years so why even ask??

I thought 80% of Japanese citizens were opposed to the Olympics? Looks like Japan has fake polls, too.

It went rather well, and everybody loves it.

The only thing I have complaint for is the ceremonies lacking in japanese culture.

The article presupposes that the Japanese public have a say in the running of the country and the projects that are undertaken – they do not!

I thought 80% of Japanese citizens were opposed to the Olympics? Looks like Japan has fake polls, too.

Maybe you should read the articles with the poll figures themselves again

Anyway, I hope the people who called for boycott of the Olympics remains steadfast in boycotting any and all future iterations

Keep the games in Greece.

Here's the link to the TV program.

https://cu.tbs.co.jp/episode/20093_2009516_1000009634

That's a really good report and well worth watching. I've been to the Nagano Spiral bobsleigh track. You can just walk in and talk a look. The path alongside the ever-rusting track is being promoted for "Nordic Walking", basically walking with hiking poles as a new-fangled form of low-impact exercise. The report talks in depth about problems at the white-elephant rowing facility, but the big one is the aquatics center that cost about half a billion USD to build and wasn't even needed in the first place. Japan's bid back in 2011 or whenever it was promised a compact, environmentally friendly games that would use existing facilities. This focus on whether x extra Covid 19 cases means it was "safe" or "secure" is largely irrelevant. The whole thing was nonstop lies and a massive waste of public money. It also ramped up construction costs and took away manpower, machines, and materials just as Tohoku was trying to rebuild.

Just crunched some numbers out of curiosity to see what that money could have been worth to us in straight money terms. If each of us had received our share of that 2.5 trill that it says above it's going to cost Japan, and invested it at 6% interest for 30 years, it would have been worth Y160,000 after 30 years. So not a huge amount spread over the whole population, but in terms of holding up a sagging pension system, it would certainly have made a dent in the problem. Of course if you factor in that the population is going to be way lower in 30 years (projected at 100m), so each person could actually get a bigger share of the cake (Y200,000).

But I prefer to think of it in terms of social infrastructure, for example subsidised nursery places for children, home helper services or home meals services, or gyms for disabled people and old people. All freeing up carers to be economically active, allowing many more people to live a more comfortable and independent life for longer, keeping local communities out in the countryside afloat for longer and letting Japanese society down more gently.

Tokyo Olympics is cursed - both times it tried to host the Olympics (1940 & 2020), both times something occurred that made it not happen those dates

all this article does is give the anti-Olympics crowd one more platform to whine, whinge & complain

Idiotic people crowding outside during a pandemic. Sad