Meanwhile, drug manufacturer AstraZeneca announced Tuesday it had suspended trials of its COVID-19 vaccine after an 'unexplained illness' in one of the study's participants. Ontario's five-day rolling average of new cases hit 177.7 on Tuesday, up from 120.6 the previous week, and 88.4 on August 8. On Tuesday, Ontario's provincial government announced it would pause further plans to relax public health measures after a surge of new cases. may have shifted since then, but too many variables remain for anyone to say definitively that staging an Olympic games next summer justifies the potential public health cost. Only 23.9 % of people in Japan are in favor of holding next summer's #Tokyo2020 as scheduled, while the country's populace has become increasingly dissatisfied with PM Shinzo Abe's response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, a Kyodo News survey shows. WATCH | Canada's chef de mission ponders logistics of 2021 Games: With so much still unknown about its long-term effects, and the trajectory of the pandemic, organizers can't stop calculating the cost of the 2021 games in terms of lives affected and lives lost. The figures are staggering, but they're still just money.īy Wednesday afternoon, COVID-19 had infected more than 27.6 million people worldwide, and killed nearly 900,000. In May, the International Olympic Committee revealed it expected to make $800 million in payouts to help local organizers and national committees cover the delay's costs. Late last year the local organizing committee said staging the games would cost $12.6 billion US, but Japan's National Audit Board assessed expenses and pegged costs at more than $22 billion.Īnd those numbers don't even account for the billions it will cost to reschedule events and living arrangements if and when athletes arrive in Tokyo, or the expensive process of COVID-proofing the Olympic village, with daily testing and tight restrictions on who can enter. The desire to press ahead makes sense given what organizers, sponsors and broadcasters have already invested in the Tokyo Games. Without solid answers, we should all make peace with another postponement, or even a cancellation. What, exactly, is the cost, and who is paying?

Canadian athletes hopeful Tokyo Olympics can still happen without vaccine.

'I think we have to hold the Games at any cost.' 'Everyone involved with the Games is working together to prepare, and the athletes are also making considerable efforts toward next year,' she said. Zain Chagla discusses possibility of 2021 Olympics: I'll wash my hands for 20 seconds, limit the time I spend in public, and wear a face covering when I venture into stores or other places crowds might form. We're still living through a global pandemic, and the novel coronavirus doesn't care about our timetable for returning to normal life.Īs a sports fan and journalist, I'll do what I can to help make Tokyo 2021 happen. An on-schedule summer Olympics would have meant more work for me, more invoices sent and, eventually, more cash in the bank.īut if we want festivals and concerts and sold-out sports events next summer, part of the price we pay is inconvenience today. Now we all do.Īnd as an adult with a mortgage, I could have used the money.

Before Rio, hardcore gymnastics fans knew Simone Biles was a superstar. And I was willing to welcome the new stars that emerge every Olympic cycle. I was ready to wake up at dawn to see if some sub-60-kilo weightlifting phenom could clean-and-jerk three times his bodyweight. Those would have been the most thrilling 9.7-ish seconds of my Sports Fan Summer. I wanted to see Christian Coleman against Andre De Grasse et al in the men's 100-metre final in front of a capacity crowd. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ. This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports.

A. morgan olympic games tokyo 2020