With just 4 days to go until the opening ceremony, I thought I might share some of my thoughts of the games.
First of all, I believe the Tokyo Olympic Committee made the right decision to not have any spectators attend the games. There has been another state of emergency in Tokyo and 2 other Japanese cities that wont expire until after the games end due to the Delta variant of COVID 19. It would have been great to have only vaccinated spectators from Japan and the world attend the games but overseas spectators were ruled out a few months ago and , in my opinion, only Japanese spectators at the games would be an unfair advantage for Japan. The latest plan by the Japanese Olympic Committee to have only Japanese spectators at the games with venue attendance capped at 50 percent or a cap of 10,000 spectators was canceled in favor of no spectators.
This will mostly affect the Opening Ceremony, which is made for spectators. Imagine 11,000 athletes walking around the stadium with no fans cheering them on. Its going to be weird watching the opening ceremony. To some extent, some athletes performances might be better or worse without fans. Without their families cheering them on from the stands it might be hard for an athlete to get motivated or if a performance goes wrong, the athlete wont have anyone to pick them up mentally.
The TV schedule, which in past games was taped, will now be shown live. On some days some events start at 2 am or 4 am eastern time and continue throughout the day and evening. Women's soccer matches start at 4:30 am, track and field events will be shown on Peacock tv streaming at 6am to 9 am and swimming events will be shown at 9:30pm eastern time, later into the games, track and field will be shown in the evening. I'm not sure how I will be able to watch the 8 sports I usually follow. Some indoor volleyball matches start at 10pm eastern and that conflicts with swimming events. On Thursday August 5 the gold medal matches of women's beach volleyball and women's soccer will be shown on two different networks at almost the same time. The women's soccer gold medal match is at 10pm on USA network and the women's gold medal beach volleyball match will begin at 10:30pm on NBC. I usually watch both, especially if the USA is in either. Gymnastics events for both men and women will be shown on Peacock TV at 4 am and 6 am. If I want to watch these events live. I may be sleep deprived. The first 2 tests will be this week. The first USA women's soccer match will be shown live Wednesday July 21 at 4:30 am eastern time and The Opening Ceremony will be televised at 6:55 am on Friday July 23.
Blogging the games should be easier as Tokyo as Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of eastern time in the USA. The Rio games were blogged live. What wont be easier is getting the photos of the medal winners. New rules were put in place by the Tokyo Olympic committee that there won't be any medal winner pictures taken of the athletes on the medal stand during the medal ceremonies. Expect fewer pictures on this blog(or no pictures) on each day I blog the results.
Predictions may be more difficult these games. Teams could be disqualified or individual athletes disqualified from participating from testing positive for Coronavirus.
