The 2020/2021 Olympic Games have been, in many ways, an unmitigated disaster for the International Olympic Committee, who’s been attempting, in vain, to shed a reputation for greed that began back in the 1990’s.
You see, these games aren’t exactly the prestigious competition that they once were, as archaic rules continue to exclude some of the world’s most impressive competitors. Instead, they are a strategic marketing consortium that allows the IOC to loan their clout to a network like NBC for a strategically-negotiated price that brings some of the legacy advertising brands out of the woodwork to produce overly-melodramatic commercials.
In fact, according to the athletes, the IOC doesn’t seem to give a damn about them at all.
Olympic athletes competing in outdoor games have become increasingly vocal in their protests that Tokyo’s summer heat is a threat to their health, prompting tennis to reconfigure its schedule on Wednesday to the evenings to keep players out of the sun.
The decision followed objections from Novak Djokovic, the world’s top tennis player and a favorite to win the gold medal, and a particularly excruciating match for world number two Daniil Medvedev, who protested to the umpire Tuesday that if he continued playing, “I can die.” Djokovic is representing Serbia at the Summer Olympics; Medvedev is playing for the Russian Olympic Committee.
The situation appeared to be dire.
“I felt like my diaphragm has blocked,” Medvedev later explained, according to the Associated Press. “I couldn’t breathe properly. It was the most humid day we had so far — maybe the hottest.”
After taking several breaks, the umpire asked Medvedev if he could continue, to which he replied, “I can finish the match, but I can die.”
This, after the Japanese Olympic Committee was found to have underreported the severity of the weather during Tokyo summers during the bidding process, further demonstrating the group’s indifferent attitude regarding the safety of their athletes.
