2021 Tokyo Olympics - News and Issues

[shri]

Looks like they're going ahead with the Olympics, so lets start a new thread for news, views everything else.

Summary from NYTimes:

• A coronavirus cluster has overshadowed the run-up to the Games, as a U.S. gymnast tested positive.
• Toyota pulled its Olympics television ads in Japan, a symbolic vote of no confidence as the Games begin amid a national state of emergency.
  
  

  Toyota will refrain from airing television ads at home during the Games, and its chief executive, Akio Toyoda, will not attend the opening ceremony, a company spokesman told local news media during an online news conference.
  
  “Various aspects of this Olympics aren’t accepted by the public,” said the spokesman, Jun Nagata, according to the business daily Yomiuri Shimbun.

• These Games may be the hottest on record: Tokyo warned its citizens to not exercise outside this week, but athletes have little choice but to compete.
• No, the cardboard beds for athletes are not “anti-sex.” They’re just recyclable.
  
  https://twitter.com/McClenaghanRhys/...67768938291203
  
• The first competitions will begin Wednesday, ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony.
• South Korea’s president cancels an Olympic summit meeting in Japan after a diplomat’s comment.
  
  

  The talks between Seoul and Tokyo to arrange an Olympics summit meeting had made significant progress, Seoul officials said. But they unraveled after JTBC, a South Korean cable channel, reported on Friday that Hirohisa Soma, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, ridiculed Mr. Moon with a lewd comment during a meeting with one of its reporters.
  
  Mr. Moon’s diplomatic overtures toward Japan are tantamount to “masturbating” because Japan “does not have the time to care about bilateral relations as much as South Korea hopes,” Mr. Soma was quoted as saying.

• The Olympics composer resigns after acknowledging that he had bullied classmates with disabilities.
  
  

  Keigo Oyamada, 52, who uses the stage name Cornelius, announced on Twitter that he had handed in his resignation to the Tokyo organizing committee just four days before he was to oversee music for the opening ceremony.
  
  Shortly after the announcement, parts of interviews he had given in the 1990s to a Japanese magazine, in which he described how he had abused classmates years earlier, surfaced on social media. The interviews quoted Mr. Oyamada saying that he had taunted children with Down syndrome, stripped classmates naked and forced them to masturbate.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07...-updates-tokyo

[Elegiaque]

I find it remarkable that the word masturbate (+antisex) comes up twice in your initial post about the Olympics.

Poor Japan. There couldn't be a better, more welcoming country, yet this all looks set to go down in history.

[shri]

Sets the tone for the show I guess..

[bdw]

The first event kicks off in 22 hours, Japan vs Australia, softball, not in Tokyo but Fukushima (2011 earthquake area).

[Coolboy]

I find it remarkable that the word masturbate (+antisex) comes up twice in your initial post about the Olympics.

Japan has a very...strange relations to sex. On one hand, they are known for their infamous "AV" (Adult video) porn industry. Where sex videos are sold pretty much at every 7-11, or at least it used to be that way. Traditional Japanese beliefs also lacked the prudish approach that Westerners had to sex, such as the 19th century Victorians, where sex was seen as vulgar and not something that can be discussed publicly or privately. In contrast, according to historic Japanese thinking, sex was just seen as another part of nature, of life. Its not something they necessarily focus on to the exclusion of other stuff, but its not something they go out of their way to avoid, either.

Yet the flip side of this, is that publicly, Japan is a very conservative society, sex is just not something that is openly talked about. Sex between couples are infrequent and in fact is seen as one of the lowest in the world. Adultery rates are surprisingly high (but again, not something that can be discussed with any kind of public scrutiny).

[Coolboy]

Poor Japan. There couldn't be a better, more welcoming country, yet this all looks set to go down in history.

All Olympics have their quirks and hiccups. Rio had more than their fair share. I think we need to see things in context. Given the pandemic, its remarkable the Olympics is happening at all. I think some credit should be given to the Olympics Organizing Commitee, for the event actually taking place in spite of all the events that has been going on.

[Coolboy]

Sets the tone for the show I guess..

Why don't we wait until the show actually starting before we pronounce its supposed "failure"? So far this thread is only focusing on things that have gone wrong, but there are things that have gone right...in spite of the pandemic.

[shri]

Why don't we wait until the show actually starting before we pronounce its supposed "failure"? So far this thread is only focusing on things that have gone wrong, but there are things that have gone right...in spite of the pandemic.

Not saying its a failure ... not at all. Just saying the tone that has been set is quite different this time around.

[Coolboy]

Not saying its a failure ... not at all. Just saying the tone that has been set is quite different this time around.

With the pandemic, I don't think this Olympics would be like any other, whether the IOC or Japan like it or not, haha.

[shri]

The chief of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee has not ruled out cancelling the Olympics if Covid-19 cases rise sharply, as more athletes tested positive for the virus and sponsors ditched plans to attend Friday’s opening ceremony.

Asked at a news conference if the global sporting showpiece might still be cancelled, Toshiro Muto said he would keep an eye on infection numbers and liaise with other organisers if necessary.

“We will continue discussions if there is a spike in cases,” said Muto. “We have agreed that based on the coronavirus situation, we will convene five-party talks again. At this point, the coronavirus cases may rise or fall, so we will think about what we should do when the situation arises.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...085dcd6b593952