We like sport. We like the Olympic Games. We like travel. So, these days we make a point of sightseeing Olympic venues if we travel to an Olympic Games host city.

Here’s a list of Olympic host cities we’ve visited to date – I’m sure to write travel tales about them, perhaps inspired during Tokyo 2020. I’ll link them when they’re ready!

Barcelona (1992)
Beijing (2008)
Berlin (1936)
Helsinki (1952)
London (1908, 1948, 2012)
Los Angeles (1932, 1984)
Melbourne (1956)
Mexico City (1968) (Louise only)
Paris (1900, 1924)
Rome (1960)
Sapporo (Winter Games, 1972)
Sydney (2000)
Tokyo (1964, 2020)

In trips to Japan we combine catching up with friends and family with a visit to somewhere new. In 2012 we visited Olympic venues while in Tokyo (pictured above), and our new place was Sapporo. In 2018, our new place was the Takayama area with the lovely traditional village of Shirakawago, we where travelled together with Chizuru and Miwato.

At the end of that trip in 2018, we farewelled friends and host families with “See you in two years, just before the Olympics!” We fully expected our next trip to take place in May 2020.

We decided to go prior to the start of the Olympics, as we might be able to see the completed venues, and while watching on TV back in Australia later we would know just where the action was taking place. The weather in May is also much nicer than the humidity of a Japanese summer.

With Olympic ideas in mind, we looked at where the torch relay was planned. Of course, with expected Japanese preparation of the details, the full daily schedule was already published. Where was it going to be on our planned dates – ahh, Gifu! We haven’t been there yet, so initial talks were had with Chizuru and Miwato to see if they would like to join us again for a few days travel.

As a Japanese speaker, I also toyed with the idea of signing up as a volunteer during the Olympics, checked out the requirements online, and discussed the possibility with some good friends in Japan. Some of them too, had also researched it, but soon decided that the actual demands (number of hours, number of days required, coupled with the expected weather in Japan) made it look less attractive than it first seemed. Chizuru did sign up to volunteer with her local city for English support for the visiting overseas teams who were scheduled to be training there.

Early 2020: plans continued, flights booked, itineraries discussed. Then, COVID struck in earnest. What would this mean for our planned travel? Olympics – postponed. We postponed our trip too, nominally for a year. As time went on, it was clear it would be better to cancel. We did and were glad to get our flight costs fully refunded from Qantas, as it seems not everyone was as fortunate.

Fast-forward to today, and the postponed Olympics are just a couple of days away. It’s now with mixed feelings that we anticipate Tokyo 2020.

We know friends and family who propose to boycott watching the games, as it is not fair that our athletes are allowed to travel, whilst others are not – even for seemingly compassionate reasons.

We wonder if it might be a super-spreader event, with athletes attending from so many COVID affected countries. Although I’m not really keen on the pomp and ceremony of the typical opening ceremony, I do like to see representation from so many countries; checking out their costumes, seeing the size of the team, commenting on how I’ve forgotten what their flag is, and, oh, I’d even forgotten about that country entirely …

We wonder if some countries can even be sending teams as expected. How are Brazil’s COVID numbers doing? India? Indonesia? Can they send participants? Should they?

We wonder if we will be reflecting with hindsight in a month or so, thinking as we already have, that the games should have been cancelled rather than postponed.

Then I think about our friends and family in Japan. They too had hoped to be involved, but parts of Japan itself are still in a state of emergency. What really will be the impact on Tokyo and Japan?

Meanwhile, as I write this here in Adelaide, South Australia, we have just begun a (hopefully only) week-long lockdown due to a mere handful of local COVID cases. My hairdressing appointment this morning has been postponed, our game of lawn bowls this afternoon has been cancelled.

I think I’ll just have to put on the TV … Tokyo 2020 Preliminary Day 1 Australia v Japan softball is just about to begin.