Holding the Tokyo Olympics shreds consensus in Japan with concerns about COVID-19 at odds with political and financial interests: ‘It’s a bit like a gambler who already has lost too much’

TOKYO — Japan is famous for running on consensus. But the decision to proceed with the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics has shredded it.

On one side, the Japanese public face concerns about the coronavirus at a time when only 16% are fully vaccinated. On the other side are politicians who hope to save face by holding the Games and the International Olympic Committee with billions of dollars on the line.

“We have been cornered into a situation where we cannot even stop now. We are damned if we do, and damned if we do not,” Kaori Yamaguchi, a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee and a bronze medalist in judo in 1988, wrote in a recent editorial published by the Kyodo news agency.