[teejers1]

Tokyo declares Covid emergency for Olympics.  No spectators.  Wonder what impact that has on family members of participants getting back all their prepaid travel expenditures.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/tokyo-oly...spectators

As I understand it, the Tokyo organizing committee announced back in March that no foreign spectators would be allowed to attend due to covid: https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/news/...tokyo-2020 

Tourists from the U.S. (and most other countries) haven't been allowed into Japan for over a year now, but there was hope before March that those restrictions would be relaxed for Olympic ticketholders, including parents. I assume that by this point, those parents have gotten ticket refunds from the organizing committee, but what that means for hotels or airfare might be another story--while airlines mostly relaxed cancellation policies due to Covid, the number of flights to Tokyo has dropped so much due to only business travel being permitted, they may not be as forgiving of a cancelled booking in July 2021 as they were in April 2020. 

The no-spectator rule in Tokyo and some other areas thus impacts domestic fans, who had been allowed to purchase tickets for limited-capacity events. Those folks can now get refunds, of course. It's a bummer for Olympic parents that they can't watch their kids compete, but parents aren't credentialed by the USOC like athletes and coaches are, so I'm assuming parents knew attending was highly doubtful even before March, and they've now had a few months to adjust plans. 

(There may be an exception for caregivers for nursing mothers, as Olympic athletes who are nursing mothers are now allowed to bring their babies, but obviously, they're gonna be pretty busy much of the time. I wonder if there will be a team-credentialed childcare provider or if nursing mother athletes basically get a +1 to take care of her child while the mother is off competing/training, etc. So, maybe Alex Morgan gets to bring her mom or someone else, but that's it, and she wouldn't be able to attend Alex's games anyway.)

I would like to think the USOC is doing something for family and friends, whether it's sponsored watch parties with special event feeds so a parent can watch every moment their child competes, but I don't know whether that's true. Maybe a big thing at the headquarters in Colorado Springs so parents can interact with other Olympic parents and have a focused experience that takes at least some of the sting out of not being able to be there in person and at least feels special.  

From a pure competition perspective, I wonder what effect we'll see on the athletes from (1) not having their usual support systems present in Tokyo, beyond coaches and teammates, and (2) competing in front of no fans at all. (There will be some fans at some of the soccer/baseball/softball games because some of those venues are outside the geographic area of the state of emergency.) Will we see as many world records fall if the races in the pool and on the track feel more like a training session with no crowd noise? Will they pipe in crowd noise like some MLB teams did last year? And from our perspective, will the viewing experience at home be eerily quiet without that crowd noise, and if so, will NBC include some to stoke viewer excitement and interest even though the sound isn't there in the stadium in Tokyo? After the last few months of increasing normality of sports here in the U.S., it's going to feel jarring to watch empty venues again. 

In past Olympics, seeing other competitions has been a popular activity for athletes, and I wonder if that will hold true this time. Since the village is supposed to be something of a bubble, I could see the organizing committee encouraging athletes to attend as many events as they can to create as normal a competition environment as possible for those competing. I could also see them shutting that down completely in order to keep possible exposure points limited. Not sure at how strict the bubble is, though. (And even strict bubbles aren't so strict when you have athletes who want to go out and play and manage to find ways to sneak out, etc.)

---

FWIW, if the group stage in women's soccer plays out as expected, then the US would face Japan in a quarterfinal. That quarterfinal is currently scheduled for a location that would not have spectators. I wonder if the game might be moved to a more distant location that will permit limited domestic spectators.

Remember when the US was held out as the poster nation for poor Covid response?
One thing done right was the front-end, all out pursuit of a vaccine.
It's mind-boggling to me that Japan is in this self-imposed State of Emergency (and that only 20% of population is vaccinated).  We've got free vaccine up the wazoo here and are begging those not vaccinated to get their shots. . . 

I think it SUCKS that the Olympic venues will not be filled with spectators (or at last 50% filled) and believe Japan must have mismanaged a lot to be in this state.  Regardless, itt will make for very odd broadcasts - akin to the Copa America contests in empty stadia - and a lot less fun to watch.

[teejers1]

Tokyo declares Covid emergency for Olympics.  No spectators.  Wonder what impact that has on family members of participants getting back all their prepaid travel expenditures.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/tokyo-oly...spectators

As I understand it, the Tokyo organizing committee announced back in March that no foreign spectators would be allowed to attend due to covid: https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/news/...tokyo-2020 

Tourists from the U.S. (and most other countries) haven't been allowed into Japan for over a year now, but there was hope before March that those restrictions would be relaxed for Olympic ticketholders, including parents. I assume that by this point, those parents have gotten ticket refunds from the organizing committee, but what that means for hotels or airfare might be another story--while airlines mostly relaxed cancellation policies due to Covid, the number of flights to Tokyo has dropped so much due to only business travel being permitted, they may not be as forgiving of a cancelled booking in July 2021 as they were in April 2020. 

The no-spectator rule in Tokyo and some other areas thus impacts domestic fans, who had been allowed to purchase tickets for limited-capacity events. Those folks can now get refunds, of course. It's a bummer for Olympic parents that they can't watch their kids compete, but parents aren't credentialed by the USOC like athletes and coaches are, so I'm assuming parents knew attending was highly doubtful even before March, and they've now had a few months to adjust plans. 

(There may be an exception for caregivers for nursing mothers, as Olympic athletes who are nursing mothers are now allowed to bring their babies, but obviously, they're gonna be pretty busy much of the time. I wonder if there will be a team-credentialed childcare provider or if nursing mother athletes basically get a +1 to take care of her child while the mother is off competing/training, etc. So, maybe Alex Morgan gets to bring her mom or someone else, but that's it, and she wouldn't be able to attend Alex's games anyway.)

I would like to think the USOC is doing something for family and friends, whether it's sponsored watch parties with special event feeds so a parent can watch every moment their child competes, but I don't know whether that's true. Maybe a big thing at the headquarters in Colorado Springs so parents can interact with other Olympic parents and have a focused experience that takes at least some of the sting out of not being able to be there in person and at least feels special.  

From a pure competition perspective, I wonder what effect we'll see on the athletes from (1) not having their usual support systems present in Tokyo, beyond coaches and teammates, and (2) competing in front of no fans at all. (There will be some fans at some of the soccer/baseball/softball games because some of those venues are outside the geographic area of the state of emergency.) Will we see as many world records fall if the races in the pool and on the track feel more like a training session with no crowd noise? Will they pipe in crowd noise like some MLB teams did last year? And from our perspective, will the viewing experience at home be eerily quiet without that crowd noise, and if so, will NBC include some to stoke viewer excitement and interest even though the sound isn't there in the stadium in Tokyo? After the last few months of increasing normality of sports here in the U.S., it's going to feel jarring to watch empty venues again. 

In past Olympics, seeing other competitions has been a popular activity for athletes, and I wonder if that will hold true this time. Since the village is supposed to be something of a bubble, I could see the organizing committee encouraging athletes to attend as many events as they can to create as normal a competition environment as possible for those competing. I could also see them shutting that down completely in order to keep possible exposure points limited. Not sure at how strict the bubble is, though. (And even strict bubbles aren't so strict when you have athletes who want to go out and play and manage to find ways to sneak out, etc.)

---

FWIW, if the group stage in women's soccer plays out as expected, then the US would face Japan in a quarterfinal. That quarterfinal is currently scheduled for a location that would not have spectators. I wonder if the game might be moved to a more distant location that will permit limited domestic spectators.

Remember when the US was held out as the poster nation for poor Covid response?
One thing done right was the front-end, all out pursuit of a vaccine.
It's mind-boggling to me that Japan is in this self-imposed State of Emergency (and that only 20% of population is vaccinated).  We've got free vaccine up the wazoo here and are begging those not vaccinated to get their shots. . . 

I think it SUCKS that the Olympic venues will not be filled with spectators (or at last 50% filled) and believe Japan must have mismanaged a lot to be in this state.  Regardless, itt will make for very odd broadcasts - akin to the Copa America contests in empty stadia - and a lot less fun to watch.