The Tokyo Olympics are in big trouble. Postponed by a year and slated to begin in July, the Games have become a political flash point in Japan, where 60 per cent of the population opposes staging them this summer and where less than 2 per cent of the population is vaccinated for Covid-19.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), local Olympic organisers and Japan's ruling party maintain that the Games must go on, even amid pandemic conditions. As Covid-19 cases surged in Japan in January, IOC president Thomas Bach said he had "no reason whatsoever to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not open on July 23". He added: "There is no Plan B."
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