Hello everyone from Tokyo - I hope you are doing okay and that things in your country are improving! It is very exciting that eventing competitions are re-starting!
If the Olympics were happening this year, we would be 18 days away from the Opening Ceremony. Instead, we have still 382 days to go.
With more than a year before the start of the Games, on the 23rd July 2021, there is quite a lot going on in the office and in the venues at the moment:
- all the schedules of the 55 sports of the Games (33 sports for the Olympics and 22 sports for the Paralympics) will be confirmed soon
- all the departments are busy renewing plans and contracts for next year
- as all the venues were completed, all the temporary buildings will be removed to avoid getting damaged and will be re-installed again next year
- all the International Federations changed the qualification system for 2021
As you can imagine, the postponement involves a lot of issues on every front with a lot of additional costs so everyone involved is working on reducing budgets and rearranging plans.
To reach Equestrian Park from the subway station, you just need to follow horseshoes
At the moment the Organising Committee employs more than 3000 people with about 150-200 international employees. Some of the international staff already have other commitments starting from September/October such as the Winter Olympics or other events and all of them (me included) are now stuck in Japan for another year.
But for me, the worst thing at the moment is not being able to go back to my home country. Japan currently has an active travel ban on more than 120 countries, meaning that only Japanese citizens can re-enter the country. Hopefully the travel restrictions will be lifted soon and contractors and overseas consultant will be able to come to work on the plans for 2021.
However, the silver lining is that Tokyo is not at all crowded without tourists and is quite nice to go around the city and discover new places.
Joren-ji temple
As we are now in the middle of rainy season the weather is mostly awful in Tokyo with daily rain showers, very high level of humidity and very hot: not pleasant at all!
Tokyo skyline from Toyosu
To reduce the costs involved with the postponement the IOC and the Organizing Committee have decided that there won’t be any kind of celebration on the 23rd of July to mark the One Year To Go milestone, that is pretty sad but understandable for the time being.
On that day I’ll be lying on a beach in Okinawa and I’ll certainly make a toast!
Carola
