Published January 2, 2021, 10:19 AM
Olympic Rings are seen a the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, amid the spread of the COVID-19. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)
Amid the slew of cancelled sports spectacles worldwide last year, the sputtering attempts to restart in empty arenas stalled events, and the success of an experimental bubble, the single biggest question for 2021 is “Will the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, initially calendared in mid-2020 at the height of a deadly global pandemic, finally see the light of day this July?”
The high lords of the International Olympic Committee and their counterparts in the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games hope so, and both have expressed confidence that the lives and safety of 15,000 athletes from over 200 countries, not to mention hundreds of thousands of spectators, will not be placed at risk in what could potentially be a catastrophic super-spreader event.