(Bloomberg) -- The now-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics was supposed to showcase Japan’s recovery after the devastating 2011 earthquake and its economic revival after two-plus decades of anemic growth. Now, even if the pandemic subsides and the games proceed next year without a hitch, the event will be tinged with the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak.
“It’s a different story now,” said Satoko Suzuki, a professor at Hitotsubashi University’s School of International Corporate Strategy in Tokyo. “They originally wanted to show Japan is back on track.”
With the virus upending lives around the world, and countries facing economic depression, a successful and even inspiring Olympics will be difficult to pull off. With the length of the pandemic and its human toll still unknown, when the games are eventually held -- likely in the summer of 2021 -- it will likely be amid a backdrop of nations still struggling or just starting to recover.
Past Olympics have seldom been thrown into such turmoil by a singular global event, with only world war seriously scuppering the games timetable in the past. The message for the 1948 London Olympics -- held after a 12-year hiatus because of World War II, was the “Austerity Games.” The 1920 Olympics, held in Belgium in the aftermath of World War I, saw the first introduction of doves to symbolize peace.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach agreed to the unprecedented move on Tuesday. While the games will no longer start in July, but be held in sometime in 2021. They will still be called the “Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.”
“Japan has the opportunity to put a very different face on things,” said Richard Sheehan, a professor specializing in sports economics at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. The games of the 20th century had little to distinguish themselves from each other, blurring together in global memory, he added. “They need to look at this from a world-wide perspective rather than from a Japanese perspective and say ‘This is a harbinger of better times to come.’”
The first opportunity to do that will be with the Olympic torch relay, which was supposed to start later this week but was canceled. The fate of the flame hasn’t been decided, but it’s sure to become a symbol in the months ahead.
During the past week, as postponement became a question of when and not if, Abe’s messaging around the event had already begun to shift. He began referring to the games as “proof that the human race will conquer the new coronavirus.”
To make that happen, Japan’s goal will be to keep as much as the pomp and circumstance of the games intact. Abe said Bach backed him “100%” and they vowed to work together to hold the games in complete form.
That would also include the narrative around the games.
Olympic organizers and leaders will also have to manage the story as it shifts, Suzuki said. “When we have Olympics at the right time with the right scenario, it should be that it is humanity’s victory over the coronavirus.”
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