What would it take to cancel an Olympics? Opposition groups are trying to find out
TOKYO – Audible in the nearly empty stadium as Tokyo prepared to open these Olympics last month, chants of several hundred protesters underscored the tension of these pandemic Games.
“Get out IOC!” the protesters shouted. “Go to hell, IOC,” they exclaimed.
Then, the Games went on.
Japan, like many recent and future host cities, had organized opposition to these Olympics. While many come from activism on other issues, groups have formed in cities around the world to rally support to their opposition of the Games either during the bidding process or after they are awarded.
Hangorin No Kai and Okatowalink, two of the bigger groups in Japan, have opposed the Games here for years, and they’ve held smaller demonstrations during the Olympics. Public polling showed that after the Games had been delayed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic that a majority in the country wanted them postponed again or cancelled.
As opposition groups coordinate from Tokyo to Paris to Los Angeles, these Games raised a critical question – if a pandemic can’t cancel the Olympics, can anything?
“I would say I think this episode shows that the International Olympic Committee’s ethics all too often can be measured in parts per million,” said Jules Boykoff, a professor at Pacific University who has written extensively about the Games. “They talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they’re looking out for themselves and they’re looking out for the Olympics at the expense of the hosts.”
Faced with opposition here, the IOC has pointed to these Games as a beacon of hope amid the pandemic. Faced with opposition from potential hosts in recent years, it has changed its bidding process and locked in hosts for the Summer Olympics through 2032.
“We engage pretty broadly with protesters,” said IOC spokesman Mark Adams. “When we are approached, we respond to protest groups as a matter of course. You will have seen through the Olympic Agenda 2020 and our Olympic Agenda 2020+5, the whole process is to make sure that the Games fit into the plans of the local community, not as in the past sometimes was the other way around.”
If Olympic opposition groups have found any success in recent years, it has been before their city or country actually gets the Games. In bidding for the 2022 Winter Games and 2024 Summer Games, twice as many cities pulled out of the process as stayed in for the final vote.
So many cities dropped out of the 2024 race that, left with two remaining, the IOC gave 2024 to Paris and 2028 to Los Angeles.
Chris Dempsey, who co-founded No Boston Olympics in opposition to that city’s failed bid for 2024, said opposition groups need to get started as early as possible. No Boston Olympics campaigned against that city as a potential host while still in the domestic phase, allowing the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to replace it with Los Angeles when Boston lost political support.
“Once your mayor signs on the dotted line with that bidding process in the host city contract, you are really subjugating the will of your people, and even to some extent the will of your elected officials, to the IOC,” Dempsey said.
After host cities have been selected, opposition groups face a Herculean task. Only one city has ever dropped out after being awarded the Games. Denver was selected as host in 1976, but state politicians raised concerns about costs and backed the effort to pull out of hosting the Olympics.
It’s that example that opponents focus on as they try to get the Games out of their city.
In coordination, they have made similar arguments about the militarization of police to host the Olympics, gentrification to build up for the Games, displacement of people to build for and host them, cost overruns and, to some extent, white elephant venues.
“The Olympic project doesn’t create these issues,” said Anne Orchier, an organizer with NOLympics LA, “but it facilitates and accelerates this existing plan that’s already in place.
“The reality is the list of people who win is just tiny. The IOC, really powerful politicians, real estate developers, the police. That’s kind of who gets any benefit out of this, and then the people who lose, it’s a laundry list.”
In July 2019, leaders of opposition groups in Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo and other places held a summit here to discuss those concerns.
Opponents of the Paris Games have focused on similar issues, including the “undemocratic nature of the Olympics,” said Natsuko Sasaki, a member of Saccage 2024.
“We think it is impossible to reform such a corrupted institution like the Olympics and we want to scrap them,” said Sasaki in an email. “Maybe it’s not possible in 2024, but some of us think someday the IOC will no longer find any host city.”
Acknowledging that Los Angeles opponents have a tougher case to make since it will build fewer venues, Dempsey said economic arguments can draw broad support. While residents can be displaced – more than 75,000 were for the Rio Olympics, for example – most people won’t be, so opponents need to find a way to appeal to them, Dempsey said.
NOlympics LA has focused on social issues instead.
“That may be a perfectly good argument to have, but it’s not one that’s going to be successful at persuading people not to have the Olympics in their city because you need a diverse coalition of people to support your opposition and to be with you,” said Dempsey, who is now running for state auditor in Massachusetts. “And if you’re bringing in too many extraneous issues into that debate, you’re going to lose people.”
In Tokyo, organizers estimated the Games would cost $7.3 billion when they were awarded in 2013. But government audits suggest that costs ballooned even before hosting during the pandemic added billions, are now the final price tag is expected to be more than $25 billion.
Opponents in Paris, Los Angeles and Tokyo haven’t just made an argument that the Games are bad for their cities. They have argued they shouldn’t be held anywhere. In taking that position, they have not sought to seek accommodations or get changes to the Olympics.
“We don’t think it should be happening here,” Orchier said, “and we don’t want it to happen to other people in other cities.”
The opportunity to oppose them early is waning. The IOC awarded the 2032 Games to Brisbane in a vote in July, just five months after selecting the city as its preferred candidate.
Even faced with such extenuating circumstances of holding the Games during a pandemic, the Japanese government and Tokyo organizers moved forward despite the opposition. During these Games, coronavirus cases have reached a record high in Tokyo.
But the success of Japan’s athletes has shifted the focus, with the host country enjoying one of its most successful Games in recent years. Not only have protestors not stopped the Olympics, these have gone on with little interruption.
“I believe the majority of people have been expressing the view that it was better that we have the Games than not,” said Tokyo organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto.
Contributing: Christine Brennan