Tokyo Olympics begin amid fear, fury & viral caseload
Day 1
Ringside view
Meenakshi Rao
As the Olympics open today, Tokyo is all hot and bothered. Not just because of the heat at 34 degrees, but because the 71 per cent humid air is heavy with strains of the Delta Variant getting as infectious as the usual twinkle in the eye of ace Indian archer Deepika Kumari.
She aimed at bullseye 74 meters away in a seaside stadium all wrapped up in a mask. She came 9th in the individual archery competition with 663 points on board to qualify for the 1st Round – and face Karma of Bhutan in the next round.
Yes, that’s all part of the pinnacle of sporting spirit that athletes at the Big Games come with. But this Olympics comes wrapped in a world struggling with a recurring wave of the pandemic getting deadlier with time; it also comes in the face of scepticism amid Tokyo-ites about the Games being held at all; it comes wrapped in talk of the host country being arm-twisted to hold the Games risking billions; it is accompanied with allegations of the Olympic Committee wanting to make its money negating lives; and it comes at a time when stadiums are empty, the barricades are unrelenting and ambulance sirens being the dominating sound in and around the magnificent but eerily silent stadia. There is hardly anyone to applaud that spirit that these games showcase, either in the stands our around the Olympics village and yet, the show must go on.
Amid all this fear and fury, the athletes will be the titans of the show of human endeavour, human resilience and, of course, human vulnerability to the relentless machinations of the corona virus. There is a rising caseload of casualties and infections in Tokyo, the host city is too busy dealing with fragmented spirit and a fractured medical system to appreciate or support anything other than survival and safety.
Still, let the Games begin! Let the national anthems be sung. As some would say, when the athletes get going and the pedestals populate, the fear of doom may well be overtaken by the dawn of achievement and applause – an applause that will rise in the airwaves, hopefully to take the medals away from the Delta Strain.
After all, hope springs eternal in human breast, man never is but always to be blest! So said the Pope and so what if it was in another context!