The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games was postponed for one year due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Take stock of those unexpected events in previous Olympic Games.
Wu Bingcong
If it weren’t for a raging COVID-19 epidemic, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games would be in full swing. The virus pandemic forced the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee to postpone the Olympic Games for one year, but this is not the first time in history that the Olympic Games cannot be held as scheduled. Due to the two world wars, several Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics in Berlin, Germany, Tokyo, Japan and Helsinki, Finland were forced to cancel. In addition to the COVID-19 epidemic, Norovirus and Zika virus have also brought great trouble to the organizers of the Olympic Games.
As a four-year world sports event, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and the flame lighting ceremony have attracted much attention. However, accidents such as the burning of pigeons in the Seoul Olympic Games and the "five rings without one ring" in the Sochi Winter Olympics have caused a lot of controversy and discussion. The Olympic Games symbolizes peace, but it happened that some people took the opportunity to stir up terrorism, maim innocent lives and arouse people’s panic. The unfortunate casualties of athletes and behind-the-scenes workers also made everyone feel sad. Taking stock of these sudden accidents in the course of the century-old modern Olympic Games has brought many challenges to the organizers, but peace and beauty are undoubtedly the main theme of the century-old Olympic Games.
Wars broke out, and the Tokyo and Berlin Olympic Games were cancelled.
Before the official announcement of the Tokyo Olympic Games was postponed, the International Olympic Committee gave a four-week observation period, and was finally forced to make a "difficult decision" to postpone it according to the epidemic situation. For the organizers, the delay of this major event has brought immeasurable economic losses. The BBC reported that in addition to the $11.8 billion already invested, the organizers are bound to need more funds, and sponsors, tourism, urban planning, historical heritage and local enterprises will all suffer from the negative impact of the postponement of the Olympic Games.
The most famous cancellation of the Olympic Games in history also happened in Tokyo, Japan. If we sort out the bidding process of the 12th Olympic Games, we will find that it was a group of people who tried their best to host the Games and then tried their best to sayno..
Writer David goldblatt recorded in his book "Games: A Global History of the Olympics" that the Japanese government at that time actively bid for this Olympic Games, hoping to show a Japan that recovered from the 1923 earthquake disaster. The Tokyo government formally applied in 1932, and Rome, Italy and Helsinki, Finland competed for the right to host the games at the same time. David goldblatt describes in his book that the Japanese government lobbied around to win the right to host the games, and finally persuaded Mussolini. The book wrote: "At that time, you helped me and I helped you, which has become a normal state of international sports. Mussolini surprisingly announced that if Japan supports Italy’s bid for the 1944 Olympic Games, Italy will support Japan’s bid for the 1940 Olympic Games. "
In July 1938, the Japanese government suddenly issued a statement saying that the Olympic Games would not be held! The Japanese Olympic Committee euphemistically mentioned "the trouble with China" in its statement. In fact, there are two reasons for the cancellation of this Olympic Games: First, after the September 18th Incident, Japan’s aggression against China was condemned by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations. After Japan withdrew from the organization in 1933, it began to expand its aggression around the world, and gradually became hostile to all countries in the world and fell into diplomatic difficulties. Second, there are voices in Japan, hoping to spend more money on military activities instead of hosting the Olympic Games. Under such pressure, the Tokyo Olympic Games and the Sapporo Winter Olympics planned for the same year were all cancelled.
Subsequently, the International Olympic Committee decided to change the venue of the 12th Summer Olympic Games to Helsinki from July 20th to August 4th, 1940. However, due to the chaos and turmoil in Europe caused by World War II, the Olympic Games and Winter Olympics, which changed hands, were forced to cancel again. Finally, after the end of World War II, the Olympic flame was reignited in London in 1948. After Japan gave up the right to host the Olympic Games in 1940, it was as far away as 1964 that it ushered in the Olympic flame again.
The earliest cancellation of the Olympic Games took place in Berlin, Germany in 1916. The German Stadium in Berlin, which was built for the Sixth Olympic Games, started construction in 1912, and when it was completed in 1913, 10,000 doves were released, and 60,000 people watched the event. However, a year later, World War I broke out, and the war lasted for several years. In serious cases, the German army even advanced to 70 kilometers away from Paris, ioc headquarters. Wars broke out, peace ceased, and the Olympic Games, a symbol of peace, died unfortunately in the war. Even ioc headquarters once moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, a neutral country, to take refuge.
Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, took "creating a sports culture that exists without politics" as his lifelong goal. However, the Olympic Games are frequently associated with war and even aggression, which makes people feel sorry. Peace and development are the themes of today’s era, but the cancellation of these Olympic Games in history has witnessed the dark history of imperialist aggression in the form of sports.
Human life is a matter of concern, and the Olympic casualties are embarrassing.
In every Olympic Games, there are always several happy families and several worried families. Some athletes break through the limit to win the gold medal, but others are injured or even killed.
The latest death of an athlete occurred at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016. Bahman Goba Nezhad, a 48-year-old Iranian cyclist, crashed on the way to the men’s C4-5 cycling road race and died after being sent to hospital for treatment. Goba Nezhad is a veteran of the battlefield, with 12 years of cycling experience. He also participated in the London Olympic Games in 2012, and was called the best national player by Iranian Paralympic Committee Secretary-General Ashrafi.
However, the veteran accidentally crashed on the winding downhill road around the mountain road. After falling, his head hit the rock. On the way to the hospital, he had a heart failure and eventually died. After the accident, the Brazilian Olympic Committee informed the families of the deceased and arranged for the remains to be transported back to their hometown for burial. The International Olympic Committee later issued an accident investigation report. The BBC reported that the death of Goba Nezhad was the first time that an athlete died during the Paralympic Games since it was held in 1960. To this end, the organizers joined the flag at half-mast and a mourning ceremony at the closing ceremony to pay tribute to the late athletes.
Athletes are the protagonists in the Olympic Games, but the behind-the-scenes workers in the process of preparing for the Olympic Games are also worthy of attention. During the preparation for the Olympic Games, the host country often commandeers a large amount of manpower. When the Olympic Games cycle meets the venue’s rush, the casualties caused by overtime and overwork are also very worrying.
In July 2019, the Tokyo Olympic venues were under construction, and the heat wave in midsummer swept through Tokyo. Reuters reported that since the end of July, 2019, the soaring temperature has caused 57 deaths in all parts of Japan. At this time, construction workers are facing great challenges in working outdoors.
At the beginning of August, the Tokyo International Exhibition Hall was renovated as planned and prepared to be used as a media center after the opening of the Olympic Games. On the afternoon of the 8th, a 50-year-old construction worker was found unconscious when laying a cable outside. He eventually died of heatstroke.
In addition to the potentially fatal working environment, high-intensity work pressure is also terrible. In March of that year, it was revealed in the media that a 23-year-old Japanese construction worker slept only two or three hours a day on average in order to build the Olympic venues in Tokyo, and was overwhelmed physically and mentally. Finally, he committed suicide three months after joining the Olympic venues construction plan. In the suicide note, he said: "My physical and psychological condition has reached the limit, and I can’t think of any other way to solve it."
The accident attracted the attention of Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Yasuhisa Shiozaki, who said that the incident was so serious that the organizers could not tolerate any fatal accidents at the Olympic venues and would start to reduce the workload of workers. At the same time, Dacheng Construction Company, which undertakes the building improvement plan, also publicly admitted that the company did not abide by the labor management contract and violated the Japanese Labor Basic Law.
Harm the innocent when a peaceful event is attacked by terrorists.
The Olympic Games has gathered politicians from various countries and top players in the sports field, and a large number of tourists have gathered in the city. It is inevitable that terrorists will take the opportunity to make trouble and kill innocent people in order to achieve political demands.
The bombing of the Centennial Olympic Park was a terrorist incident that had to be mentioned during the Olympic Games. The case occurred on July 27th, 1996, during the Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA. The explosion was deadly, causing one death, one heart attack and 111 injuries.
Eric Rudolph, the head of terrorism, has long been dissatisfied with the Clinton administration’s position on abortion. In order to create momentum, he is determined to make the Olympic Games impossible. The bomb was quietly installed in the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Fortunately, security guard Richard Jurville found a bomb ahead of time and evacuated most of the audience, which reduced the number of casualties. But at first, this conscientious security guard was once suspected by the FBI. Fortunately, the truth was finally found out, and Rudolph was also sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005.
In Munich in 1972, when the 20th Summer Olympic Games was held in West Germany, the Palestinian armed group "Black September" targeted the Israeli delegation participating in the Olympic Games. At 4: 10 in the morning, eight "Black September" armed men sneaked into the residence of Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village, two doors were pried open, weightlifter Roman and wrestling coach Weinberg were shot dead on the spot, and nine other members of the delegation were also held hostage.
This incident led to the emergency suspension of the Olympic Games, and negotiations and hostage rescue operations began. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has a long history. Black September hopes to demand the release of 234 Palestinians held by Israel through its hostages. Israel refused, but both sides agreed to take Egypt as an intermediate country to negotiate the redemption of hostages. At that time, the rescue plan given by the former West German police was to rescue the hostages when Palestinian militants left the country by replacing passenger planes from the air base. However, due to the wrong information, the police underestimated the number of armed personnel, and the crew of the passenger plane did not cooperate properly, which led to the rescue plan being completely out of control. In the 45-minute battle, all the hostages were killed, five of the eight Palestinian militants were killed and three were arrested; In a hijacking incident in the same year, the former West German government handed over the three men to Libya for release.
On September 6, 1972, the Munich Olympic Games, which was interrupted for 34 hours, continued, and a memorial ceremony was held for the Israeli delegation. The 12 seats vacated during the ceremony represented 11 members of the Israeli delegation and a former West German policeman who died unfortunately.
In an awkward moment, the opening ceremony will fall off the chain.
In addition to the wonderful competition, the most eye-catching performances in each Olympic Games are the grand opening ceremony and the flame lighting ceremony. Outside the scene, there are countless viewers watching the performance with jet lag in front of the TV, and any unexpected situation on the scene will be broadcast in high-definition pictures and spread all over the world.
In 1988, the flame burned a dove of peace at the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympic Games in South Korea, which attracted the highest attention in history. This accident was even crowned as "the most cruel opening ceremony in the world". In order to show the peaceful and beautiful intention with white pigeons, the organizer has prepared 2,400 white pigeons, and plans to release them at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The scene of the pigeons spreading their wings in Qi Fei is very shocking. However, what I never expected was that on the day of release, some pigeons took off and saw the pillars or towers in the stadium and flew to rest.
In the following flame lighting session, three torchbearers, Sun Meiting, Zheng Shanwan and Jin Zhuoyuan, took the lifting platform and lit the flame in Taichung with their arms raised high. At this time, the torch platform is more than ten centimeters above the torchbearer’s head, and no one can see dozens of white pigeons resting on it. At the moment when the flame was lit, the white dove that had no time to fly away was buried in the sea of fire, and the audience exclaimed. Afterwards, both the torchbearers and the Organizing Committee were condemned by animal protection organizations. However, due to their location and time, the torchbearers were unable to drive away the pigeons and could only watch the tragedy happen.
Due to planning mistakes, the dove of peace at the Olympic Games turned into a "roasted pigeon". Although the tragedy could not be redeemed, this painful historical memory remained in the hearts of a generation of Koreans. A few years ago, in the popular Korean drama "Please Answer 1988", the protagonist, who was an Olympic volunteer, was designed to take the burned dove home for burial, and remember this history with images.
The opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, was also accidentally broken, and only four rings appeared in the Olympic rings. The most important symbol of the Olympic Games is wrong, which is a big mistake in the history of the Olympic Games for a hundred years.
At the end of the opening performance of "The First Impression of Russia", the Olympic rings decorated with five edelweiss lit up the night sky. However, due to technical failure, the ring in the upper right corner of the screen disappeared out of thin air. The applause at the scene was sparse, and the audience also found this mistake. However, in the official TV broadcast pictures of countries around the world, the audience still saw the complete five rings. In this regard, Ernst, the chief producer of the opening ceremony, said that because there was a delay in the broadcast of the picture, they used the restoration technology to make up for this shortcoming. Although the rescue was fast enough, the outside world did not stop, because in the previous countdown of 10 seconds, the picture fell into darkness from the fifth second, and this obvious mistake made the scene look very embarrassing.
In the face of frequent technical problems in the opening ceremony, Ernst believes that in the only three-week rehearsal time, it is necessary to train actors and deal with equipment, and it is inevitable that mistakes will be made in a hurry. He felt that even if there were mistakes, the Sochi Winter Olympics still presented a wonderful opening ceremony performance for the world.
When the virus hits Zika and Norovirus, the lethality is not small.
Before Covid-19 delayed the Tokyo Olympic Games, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea were also threatened by Zika and Norovirus respectively. Fortunately, the number of people infected with the virus was limited and properly controlled, and the Olympic Games was finally held successfully.
The opening ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games is scheduled to be held on August 5, 2016. However, according to the BBC, only three months ago, 125 internationally renowned scientists and doctors from Harvard, Oxford, Yale and other academic institutions jointly requested that the Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro be postponed or changed to other regions.
In this open letter to the World Health Organization, scientists said that it was "immoral" to hold the Olympic Games at this time because of the rampant Zika virus. Zika virus is spread by mosquito bites. It started in Brazil and spread to more than 60 countries in more than a year. Scientists pointed out that although the symptoms of Zika virus infection are relatively mild, it may cause fetal malformation and microcephaly, and the consequences are quite serious.
These scientists even said rudely that Brazil’s plan to kill mosquitoes was not successful, and the capacity of the country’s medical system was weakened. At this time, it was unnecessary to let about 500,000 members of delegations and tourists go to Brazil.
However, in mid-June, the International Olympic Committee still decided to hold the Rio Olympic Games as scheduled. Through the assessment, the Olympic Committee believes that the virus has a weak impact on people other than pregnant women, and WHO points out that the mosquito activity in Brazil has been relatively small since August. Although the virus is identified as "low risk", experts still advise tourists to take preventive measures to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
The virus also caused many athletes to retreat before the game. American cyclist Van Gadlen withdrew from the Olympic Games because of his fear of his pregnant wife and unborn baby. Pau gasol, a famous Spanish basketball player, also said that he would consider freezing sperm in advance before taking part in the Olympic Games.
When the PyeongChang Winter Olympics was held in 2018, Norovirus was also a threat: it raided the Olympic Village one week before the opening ceremony on February 9, directly threatening the health of competitors from all over the world. The news that 86 guards in the Olympic Village were diagnosed with Norovirus broke out like a bolt from the blue. The organizers responded immediately. On February 6th, more than 1,200 guards evacuated from their posts were quarantined, and 900 gendarmes were urgently transferred to manage 20 Olympic venues and Olympic villages.
Norovirus has aroused great concern because it is super contagious. This virus that causes non-bacterial acute gastroenteritis causes diarrhea and vomiting, and saliva, feces, food and water may be the carriers of virus transmission. The gangwon Institute of Health and Environment immediately began to investigate and detected the virus in many places in the youth training center near the Olympic Village, including drinking fountains, bathrooms, hand washing tables and so on.
Fortunately, the organizing committee responded quickly, providing soap and disinfectant to players from all over the world, closing public drinking fountains, and announcing to avoid eating fresh food. Although the virus did not spread on a large scale, two Swiss freestyle skiers and three foreign journalists in the news center were still infected. Fortunately, although Norovirus attacked the Olympic Village, it was not fatal, but a series of infection symptoms made patients very uncomfortable.
