32. Olympic Summer Games
Olympic Medals in the games of 2020 in Tokio 2020
1080 Medals in 40 Sports in 339 Events
So far, the Olympic Games have had to be canceled three times due to the two world wars. One of these cancellations was in Tokyo, which was scheduled for the 1940 Games. In 1964, the Japanese capital hosted the Olympic Games for the first time. Tokyo 2020 prevailed against Istanbul and Madrid. There has never been a postponement of the games. In December 2019, the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread across the globalized world. This virus inflames the lungs, causes various symptoms such as high fever, difficult breathing or shortness of breath, dry cough, tiredness, loss of taste and / or smell, chest pain or pressure, insomnia and a few others. The course of this dangerous disease ranged from symptomless to death. 3 million people died worldwide. COVID-19 infected 125 million people worldwide, but these are only the confirmed cases, the number of unreported cases is many times this number, it was the worst pandemic since the 36 million deaths after an AIDS infection since 1980. Tokyo was in spring 2020 fully in preparation for the Olympics. Initially, the IOC had stuck to the original date from July 24th to August 9th, 2020, because the coronavirus was spreading rapidly worldwide, the organizers of the games finally had to realize that under these circumstances it was not responsible for it to be held. It would have been unfair to the athletes not to postpone the games, as training opportunities were extremely limited in many countries while they were still available in others. Therefore, it was decided in spring 2020 to hold the games from July 23 to August 8, 2021 with a one year delay. The hope lay in the development of a vaccine, it was worked on with unprecedented effort all over the world. In fact, the first approval was granted in December 2020, with more to follow by spring 2021.
The IOC published the most important rules of conduct for athletes: shouts of encouragement should be avoided, clapping is indicated as an alternative, physical contact should be avoided, protective masks should also be worn outdoors, entertainment in leisure activities should be avoided. Like discos or bars, and of course refrain from parties, the minimum distance of two meters and the hygiene measures must always be observed, excursions within Tokyo are also not planned. Under these circumstances, critics feared boring games that lacked the human aspect! The restriction to the Olympic Village was justified by the fact that it was the safest place for athletes to avoid infection with the corona virus. In addition, the athletes should enter the country 14 days in advance in order to be able to go into quarantine. The use of a corona warning app and regular tests are also mandatory. It is currently still open what happens to athletes who violate the measures. “There are rules and people have to obey them. Each delegation will have a COVID officer. The delegations have to make it clear what it means to obey the rules, ”said Ducery. Recently, however, there were increasing doubts as to whether the hosting of the games was even sensible. The majority of the Japanese population was in favor of a total rejection. The IOC and the Japanese Organizing Committee have so far insisted on an implementation this summer, as a further postponement is impracticable.
In March 2021, in coordination with the IOC, the organizers announced that no foreign visitors would be admitted to the games. At the time, it was not yet clear whether Japanese fans would be allowed to attend the sporting events.
Most of the competition venues are within eight kilometers of the Olympic Village. In 2013, the IOC announced that wrestling would be removed from the Olympic program. A worldwide outcry followed, especially since this sport was already an Olympic sport in 1896. There have also been rumors that the modern pentathlon will be canceled. After all, both sports remained Olympic. New sports were introduced, these are karate, skateboard, sport climbing and surfing. There were discussions about breakdance and snooker, but they were not yet ready for the Olympics.