Olympics
TOKYO 2020 BECOMING IMPOSSIBLE AS JAPAN’S OLYMPIC HOST TOWNS PULL OUT
Hundreds of Japanese towns and cities have been forced to rethink plans to host Olympic teams because the coronavirus will prevent public appearances and require costly safety measures.
The western town of Okuizumo spent more than US$5 million (S$6.6 million) preparing to welcome India’s hockey team for a pre-Games training camp, only to scrap the visit because of Covid-19.
After sinking money into upgrading sports facilities, Okuizomo balked when it became clear it would have to provide bubble-like biosecurity measures with regular virus tests and medical care.
“We wanted to have one of the world’s top-tier teams visit our town and show their skills to local children,” town official Katsumi Nagase told AFP.
“But that seems impossible now.”
More than 500 municipalities signed up to host athletes and officials in a scheme aimed at broadening the Olympics’ benefits beyond Tokyo.
Some, like Okuizumo, have already scrapped plans to host overseas athletes, while others are devising careful programmes they hope will keep everyone safe.
Instead of giving residents the chance to meet elite athletes and try out new sports, towns will have to ditch any physical contact, school visits and public training sessions.
Kurihara city in northern Miyagi prefecture was planning to host South Africa’s hockey team, but decided the expense was no longer worth it given the limitations imposed by virus measures.
“It’s a project that will use our tax resources,” Hidenori Sasaki, an official with the local board of education, told AFP.
“If it becomes just athletes holding a training camp without any exchanges with local residents, local citizens won’t enjoy the benefits.”
In some cases, Olympic teams have cancelled, worried about the risk of infection before the Games.
Australia’s swimming team ditched its plan to train in Niigata’s Nagaoka city, its mayor told media in March.
And Canada’s table tennis team will no longer go to Nagano’s Okaya city, which instead plans to put posters of athletes around town, said Tomoko Hirose of the city’s planning division.
“Our cheering may become a one-way engagement, without physical exchanges, but given the situation, we just have to move on,” she told AFP.
Not all host towns have given up on their plans.
Tsuruoka city in northern Yamagata prefecture will host several dozen Olympic and Paralympic athletes and officials from Moldova and Germany.
The city has had ties for years with Moldova, said Takayuki Ito, an official with the city’s board of education.
“What’s important for us is to continue our exchanges,” Ito told AFP, describing recent online archery competitions held with Moldovans.
“There are things you can do without spending a lot of money. We have a good feeling about our programme.”
But it won’t be simple. The athletes will stay in their own dormitory and move only along designated routes to gyms and training fields, avoiding contact with residents.
In western Tottori, Yonago city will host several dozen people from Jamaica’s swimming, gymnastics and Paralympic boat teams.
The city has had ties with Jamaica since 2015, and believes its host duties will strengthen that bond, said Kyohei Takahashi at the city’s sports promotion division.
The athletes will be on a designated floor and use a staff elevator of their hotel, avoiding the lobby and main entrance to limit contact.
They will also be offered frequent virus testing, as well as designated routes to gyms and pools.
“We planned very early,” Takahashi said.
“We won’t be able to have exchanges with athletes this time. But the legacy will remain,” he added.
-AFP
Organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games unveiled the event’s official visual identity on Monday, a floral-themed design system meant to reflect the city’s landscape, neighbourhoods and cultural character.
The branding will appear across competition venues, fan areas, citywide installations, signage, digital platforms and broadcast presentations during the Games, LA28 said.
At the centre of the design is the “Superbloom,” a reference to the bursts of wildflowers that can blanket parts of Southern California after periods of rain.
LA28 said the concept was intended as a metaphor for the Games, with years of preparation culminating in a short, high-profile global event.
The core graphic is built around 13 individual blooms, which organizers said represent different elements of Los Angeles, from its entertainment culture to its neighbourhoods, people and native landscape.
The colour palette draws on the Bird of Paradise, the official flower of Los Angeles, and is grouped into four families – Poppy, Scarlet Flax, Bluebell and Sagebrush – to evoke the region’s terrain and vegetation.
Organizers said the typographic style was inspired by Los Angeles street signage, including strip mall and hand-painted storefront lettering, in an effort to give the identity a distinctly local feel.
LA28 said the design was developed to work across a wide range of settings, from nearly century-old venues to new facilities, while also accounting for broadcast requirements, digital formats and lighting conditions. The organising committee partnered with design studio Koto on the project.
The identity was unveiled more than two years before the Olympic opening ceremony in what organizers described as an unusually early rollout, allowing partners and stakeholders more time to incorporate the branding into their materials.
Los Angeles will host the Olympics for a third time in 2028, after staging the Games in 1932 and 1984. It will also host the Paralympics for the first time.
-Reuters
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Organisers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics said on Monday that registration for the first ticket draw will close on March 18, as the Games begin to take shape with the first baseball qualifiers confirmed and the soccer tournament schedule expanded.
More than five million fans from 197 countries and territories have registered at tickets.la28.org since January for a chance to buy tickets, LA28 said, underscoring strong early demand for the Summer Games, which are due to open on July 14, 2028.
Fans who register by the March 18 deadline will be eligible for a lottery to receive a purchase window for the first ticket release, scheduled for April 9-19.
There will also be a local presale running from April 2-6 for eligible residents in parts of Southern California and Oklahoma. Oklahoma City will host softball and canoe slalom.
LA28 said selected applicants would be notified by email between March 31 and April 7. Fans picked for the first sale window will be able to buy up to 12 tickets for Olympic events, subject to availability, with a four-ticket cap for each of the opening and closing ceremonies.
BASEBALL RETURNS
The ticketing update comes as the first teams booked places in the Olympic baseball tournament through the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The Dominican Republic and Venezuela secured qualification spots from the Americas, joining host United States in the six-team field.
Baseball, one of the sports added to the LA28 programme, will return to the Olympics for the first time since the Tokyo Games and will be played at Dodger Stadium from July 13-19. The remaining three places will be decided through international qualifying tournaments in 2027 and 2028.
LA28 also confirmed that the Olympic soccer tournament will begin on July 10, four days before the opening ceremony, following a decision by the International Olympic Committee Executive Board to extend the competition window.
Organisers said the longer schedule would give teams two additional rest days compared with previous Games.
Group-stage and quarter-final matches will be staged in seven U.S. cities – New York, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, San Jose, San Diego and Pasadena – with the men’s and women’s gold medal matches to be played at the Rose Bowl.
LA28 said kickoff times and the full schedule would be released later this year.
-Reuters
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Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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