Japan is entering an emergency phase of the pandemic, with the hospitals filling up, and restrictions in place. Yet the International Olympic Committee still asserts that the Games must go ahead. What kind of madness is this ? Medical personnel would have to be diverted from their life-saving duties looking after coronavirus patients to minister to the needs of athletes. This is a completely warped sense of priorities. Sport, whether competitive or not, is an important activity in human self-realisation ; but it only makes any sense at all if it is in the service of life, not if it takes precedence over the preservation of life. (It is arguable that, for many years, the assumption that it is a priority to win in sporting competitions, even by cheating, has taken damaging precedence over more valuable and humane principles, such as the joy of taking part.) The IOC is making a ridiculous fetish of competitive sport, and in so doing is risking incalculable damage to it. Every participant nation must withdraw their teams immediately ; and put an end to this cruel insanity.
I will leave for another blogpost the question of whether the OLympic Games, at least in their present form, deserve to survive at all.