Tuesday marked the two-year mark until the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Olympics. Of course, NBC has been promoting an event that's two years away nonstop since the PyeongChang Games ended. The flame will be lit in Tokyo before we know it, though. And there's still plenty to do between now and then.
The 2020 Games will have the earliest start since the Atlanta Olympics, and there are legitimate concerns about the heat. Tokyo is in the midst of a heat wave right now. The high temperature this afternoon was 104. That's about 25 degrees higher than normal, but even 80 (Japan's average July high) with the humidity has caused plenty of concern. When I saw this, I began to wonder why they decided to schedule the Olympics so early. Then I saw it's not much better in August, so they were kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I guess July is the lesser of two evils.
There's plenty of concern, and rightfully so, about the safety of athletes and fans alike in that heat. They're going to attempt to combat it by holding long-distance events like the marathons and triathlons early in the morning. Other outdoor sports like track & field, meanwhile, will have their finals in the evening.
For the outdoor sports that will have competition in the afternoon, they're going to make the athletes as comfortable as possible by, among other things, keeping them indoors in air conditioning until the last possible moment. They'll also set up misting fans and keep spectator areas shaded. Still, the concerns about the heat and the resulting quality of the competition, as well as the safety of the athletes, are legitimate. Now I understand why the 1964 Olympics, which were also in Tokyo, took place in October.
When they released the competition schedule last week, the times for swimming were still listed as TBA. NBC wanted the finals scheduled for the morning local time so that they could be shown live in prime time on the East Coast. Japanese TV wanted them in the evening. Guess who ended up winning the dispute? So, just like in Beijing, the swimming finals will be held in the morning to accommodate American TV. Gymnastics and track & field won't be, though, which is a little surprising. Beach volleyball goes all day, so I'm sure NBC will arrange it that the Americans will be in the morning match.
Baseball and softball will also be returning to the Olympics in Tokyo, and softball will actually be the first sport to get underway. Soccer is traditionally the first sport to start, and there will be six women's soccer games on Wednesday as usual. But the softball game starts before the soccer games that day. In fact, with a 10 a.m. local time start, that game will be at 8:00 on Tuesday night here. (There's also archery and rowing on the morning of the Opening Ceremony for some reason I'm not gonna try to figure out.)
While baseball and softball are returning after 12 years away, Tokyo will also be introducing four new sports to the Olympic program. Unlike the additions of rugby sevens and golf in Rio, I'm lukewarm about each one (but, hey, at least they're not "e-sports"). Surfing and skateboarding will be early in the Games, while sport climbing and karate will be towards the end.
Those aren't the only new events we'll be seeing in Tokyo. Not by a long shot. Because the IOC completely ignored its own guidelines of roughly 310 events and 10,500 athletes by allowing Tokyo organizers to schedule 339 medal events. Even though they've cut back athlete quotas in some sports, don't be surprised if the total number of competitors ends up topping 11,000. (And they wonder why cities/countries don't want to host the Olympics!)
One of the new events is 3x3 basketball, while many of the others are mixed team events. I'm not completely sold on all of them, but I do give the IOC and the international federations credit for trying something different. Mixed relays, which the IOC is a big fan of, don't add any athletes and are generally pretty fun, so the only issue there was squeezing them into an already packed schedule in those sports.
As for the venues where these events will take place, Tokyo's running a bit behind. Olympic Stadium was originally supposed to host the final of next year's Rugby World Cup. Except it won't be ready by then. The new expected completion date is November 2019. That's still four months earlier than the swimming venue, though. That one might not be finished until February 2020.
In the grand scheme of things, two years is a lot of time. Right now it seems like an eternity until the Tokyo Games (as does the though of two more years of NBC's endless promotion). And there will be World Championships next year in pretty much every Olympic sport to whet our appetites. The 2020 Olympic Trials will be here soon enough, though. And that's when it really gets real.
But when you're organizing an Olympics, those two years can sneak up on you real quick. After all, it's already been five since Tokyo was awarded the Games. Before we know it, Tokyo 2020 will be here.
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