The Controversies of The Tokyo Olympics

The Olympic Games are renowned for their heartwarming stories of triumph, perseverance and incredible displays of sportsmanship.

However, amidst the tales of glory, controversy always looms large at the Olympics, and Tokyo 2020 was no exception.

Under the glow of the Olympic torch, the darker side of the competitive sport always seems to rear its ugly head as the top athletes in the world clash for 17 straight days.

From video review operators pressing the wrong button to Olympic organizers lying about summer temperatures, these Games were, as usual, filled with conflict from start to finish.

Here are five of the biggest controversies to come out of the 2020 Olympic Games:

Japan’s Olympic bid lies about weather conditions; athletes suffer as a result

One of the major storylines of the Tokyo Games has been the extreme heat that these world-class athletes have had to deal with.

The real unfortunate thing about the whole heat-wave fiasco is that throughout the bidding process, Japan’s Olympic organizers were not as truthful as they probably should’ve been in terms of the whole unbearable temperatures situation.

“With many days of mild and sunny weather, this period provides an ideal climate for athletes to perform their best.” This quote is straight from the official proposal Japan put forward in its bid to host the games.

Maybe it is just the Canadian in us, but temperatures in the mid-to-low 30 degrees Celsius range don’t seem like “mild” to us.

 

Another aspect adding to the controversy was that the locals knew it was a lie right from the beginning.

Journalist Robert Whiting wrote a column for the Japan Times back in 2014 when the 2020 Games were officially awarded to Tokyo. “I have been to Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Phnom Penh and Singapore in mid-summer and in my experience Tokyo is the worst of them all,” he wrote. “The only conceivable places that are worse would be staging the games in, say, Death Valley, California, or the Horn of Africa.”

And that is coming from a journalist. Now imagine competing in the decathlon, or running in the 10,000 metres in 34-degree heat - yikes!

Many athletes found themselves hospitalized because of the extreme conditions.

Makoto Yokohari, an adviser to the Tokyo Organizing Committee told Reuters that the temperature combined with the humidity index made “Tokyo the worst [Games] in history” in terms of weather conditions.