The very first question I had for sports writer Henry Bushnell was, are the Summer

Olympics going to happen?

Yes, tentatively.

Henry writes for Yahoo Sports.

That means right now he is drumming his fingers, seeing if he should buy a ticket to Japan.

I think most people are assuming that they will indeed happen, despite a lot of pushback.

But given everything that's going on in the world, giving everything that's going on specifically in Japan, given everything that has happened over the past year and specifically

last March when the Olympics were postponed, there's still a lot of unease throughout the

Olympic world. I think it's fair to say. I don't think anybody can be 100% sure.

One thing is certain. If they happen, the Olympics are going to be weird. They're supposed to

start July 23rd of this year, 2021, but the games are still going to be called the 2020 Olympics.

This is a decision that seems to have been made primarily for merchandising reasons after Olympics

organizers postponed last year's games due to the coronavirus. They figured we're just going to put

all those, you know, t-shirts and everything and mascots and stuffed animals and stuff

in warehouses for a year and roll it back out with a Tokyo 2020 name. So you're telling me this is a business decision.

Definitely a business decision, yes.

Turns out a lot of the decisions around the Olympics are business decisions,

which is making the people of Japan uncomfortable during a pandemic.

When the Olympic torch was carried through the city of Nagano back

in April, it was met by protesters. They held signs reading, cancel the Olympics, and focus on

coronavirus countermeasures. But if you were watching all this on Japanese television, you might not

have heard their chance.

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