A Former Olympian Discusses the Tribulations of Tokyo 2020

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Politics, Washington, News, Obama, Wnyc, President, Lizza, Barack, Wickenden

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

The opening ceremony for the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, is scheduled for Friday. With COVID{:.small}-19 cases spiking worldwide, and Japan under a state of emergency, many wonder whether the Olympics should be cancelled. Angela Ruggiero competed in four Olympic Games as a member of the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team, winning a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics, in Nagano. Ruggiero has since served on the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee, and helped to organize Los Angeles’s successful bid to host the 2028 summer games. She joins the New Yorker staff writer Louisa Thomas to discuss the challenges in Tokyo and what these Games could mean for the future of the Olympics.

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1:10.9	This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about
1:15.9	politics. It's Thursday, July 22nd. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker.
1:23.5	The official opening ceremony for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo is scheduled for Friday.
1:30.3	The games were delayed for a year by the pandemic, and in June, as coronavirus cases began to spike again around the world,
1:38.3	Japan declared a state of emergency, banning all spectators at Olympic events. Several athletes, including Cocoa Gough, the American
1:47.3	tennis star, were diagnosed with COVID-19 before traveling to Japan, and more than 70 people
1:53.9	connected to the games have tested positive for COVID. Some advertisers have withdrawn their support,
2:03.5	and many fear the Olympics could become a super spreader event. At a press conference last week, Thomas Bach, the president of the
2:10.1	International Olympic Committee and a former gold medalist in fencing, addressed criticism
2:16.1	about the decision to go forward with the games.
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