“The Games must go on.” Sound familiar?
Avery Brundage made that declaration as president of the International Olympic Committee in 1972 when a rescue mission went horribly wrong, leaving nine Israeli hostages, five Palestinian terrorists and a German policeman dead on the tarmac of the Munich airport.
It was September 5. The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September.
The IOC halted the Games for a day, then Mr Brundage uttered the five words he is most famous for.
Almost 50 years later the president of the IOC is Thomas Bach, a German fencer who won gold in 1976 and was denied the chance to defend the title when his nation joined several others in boycotting the Moscow Games in 1980.
So, what’s that got to do with Tokyo? Well, quite a lot really.
The 2020 Games were postponed for 12 months when a different kind of terrorism struck us all — the coronavirus.
The global COVID-19 pandemic knocked the Tokyo games like a Cuban heavyweight KOs his opponent in the Olympic ring.
Economies ground to a pace so slow some went into reverse.
Skies once humming with almost 10,000 planes in the air at any one time became quiet as borders shut and we all stayed home.
Tourism is virtually extinct, and a business trip is now a zoom session from that corner of your apartment that is now a work-from-home office.
This week when Bach addressed the media following an IOC executive board meeting there were those who thought he would be announcing the Tokyo Olympics had become the latest in a tragically long list of COVID casualties.
If he had done so, everybody would have understood; nobody could have blamed him.
The world is just too uncertain right now.
COVID-19 arrives like a bear awakened, wreaking damage devastatingly quickly … then retreats just as fast without a hint of when it will strike again.
Holding a two-week tennis tournament, or a Test cricket series, or a season of football with players in a bubble is challenging enough.
But to hold what is essentially a world championship event for 33 sports concurrently, with teams from 206 nations, all in a safe and secure bubble would be virtually impossible.
If Bach had called the Games off the Tokyo organisers, no doubt, would have been devastated.
And the world would have grieved with them for their loss.
But Bach did not go down that path.
Instead, he trotted out a couple of slogans that could only have emanated from a corporate boardroom full of stiff suits.
“Our task is to organise Olympic Games, not to cancel Olympic Games.”
And: “We are not speculating ‘whether’ the Games are taking place but ‘how’ the Games will take place.”
He assured everybody that the athletes of the world, the sporting federations and the 206 National Olympic Committees were “fully united and committed” in “standing behind these Games”.
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He described the complexity of the challenge for those who have spent every waking hour of the past year designing a plan that is akin to successfully wrestling with smoke.
“There is no blueprint for this, and we are learning every day,” he said.
“Nobody at this moment can predict the health situation in 206 National Olympic Committees for the time of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from late July until September this year, not even the most prominent scientists in this area.”
Correct. So why experiment with 15,000 athletes and officials and double that number in accredited media?
“This leads you may say naturally, you could also say unfortunately, you could say of course … this leads to many speculations.”
Again, correct.
“But all these speculations are hurting the athletes in their preparations who have already to overcome the challenges in their daily training and competition with all the restrictions they are facing either in their country or when it comes to traveling.
“So, there is this speculation about cancelation, about a plan B, about everything.
“Some even make the proposal to postpone the Olympic Games in Tokyo until the year 2032.”
A-ha. Here it comes. The slogans are finished. This is the real man talking.
At this point, if you get the chance to watch the press conference, do so.
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At precisely five minutes and 20 seconds the IOC President’s exasperation is on full display.
This is not a man known for showing much emotion. Make that any emotion.
So, any kind of shrug of the shoulders, an eye roll, a sigh, or holding open palms to the sky like a prayer to God would be completely out of character.
Bach does all four.
Then he wrings his hands and simultaneously opens the window to his soul.
“I want to say good luck if you would have to discuss this (2032 option) with an athlete who is preparing for the Olympic Games in 2021.”
That is the sentence that defined Thomas Bach’s thinking more than any other in the hour-long conference.
Of course, there is more to it than that, but it is the idea that an Olympian should be denied an Olympics that cuts deepest.
There is the $20 billion that would have been spent with nothing to show for it; there would be loss of face for the Japanese hoping to bring the world together celebrating post-COVID-19, mid-COVID-19; there would be billion-dollar television deals worth nothing; but mostly there would be a cohort of athletes whose one and only dance with the Olympic dream was taken from them just as they walk onto the stage.
For now, Bach has his wish, and the Games will go on.
But the last word belongs to the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga.
A year ago, he was the chief cabinet secretary under prime minister Shinzo Abe.
It was February 24 and the first wave of COVID-19 had hit with questions about the viability of the Games becoming more frequent.
“We will coordinate closely with the IOC, the organising committee and the Tokyo metropolitan government, and move ahead with preparations to make sure athletes and spectators can feel safe and secure throughout the games,” he said.
Exactly one month later, for the first time in Olympic history, the Games were postponed.
