Contents
Preface: Lives, Not Games
1. The Ever-Rising Costs of Hosting the Olympics
2. The Lie That Was Building a Stadium Without Changing City Planning
3. A Mega-Event With Mega Levels of Vested Interests
4. Bribery During the Olympics Bid
5. Prioritizing Money Over Safety
6. The Dark Truth Behind the Exploitation of Volunteers
7. Evictions of Residents and the Unhoused
8. Counterterrorism for the Olympics
9. Hiding the Truth About Fukushima Under the Mantra of the “Recovery Olympics”
10. Destroying Asia’s Forests for the Olympics
11. The Grim Reality Behind Constructing the Olympic
Venues
12. Children Mobilized by Olympics Education
13. The Emperor, National Flag, and National Anthem
14. The True Meaning of the Torch Relay
15. Eugenics and the Paralympics
16. The Olympics and Gender
17. Athlete Health Risks
18. Coubertin and Olympism
19. The Olympics and War
20. Anti-Olympics Movements Worldwide: NOlympics Anywhere
Afterword: Join Us in Opposing the Olympics

Preface: Lives, Not Games
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were postponed by a year
due to the coronavirus pandemic. We write this as we once again arrive at
the half-a-year-to-go mark. Last year, this was celebrated with a spectacular
ceremony in the Odaiba bay area of Tokyo. We were there, our voices calling
for the Olympics to be canceled audible during the live TV broadcast of the
event. The video footage was shared widely on social media around the
world. So, what about this year?
Needless to say, even the Olympics organizers would not hold a cere-
mony at a time like this. The coronavirus is still raging across the globe, with
more than 2 million having died as of writing — over 5,000 of them in Ja-
pan. Each day brings fresh updates to the numbers of deaths, infections, and
severe cases. Many cities and countries remain under lockdown or with var-
ious restrictions in place, and a second state of emergency has been declared
for Tokyo and other parts of Japan. With healthcare services on the brink of
collapse, anxiety growing over patient triage, and even fundamental human
rights no longer guaranteed, more and more residents are calling for the
Tokyo Olympics to be canceled. One recent poll by Kyodo News found that
80 percent of Japanese people want the Games to be either rescheduled or
called off.
“Plans for the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games are growing more
uncertain by the day,” the New York Times reported on January 15, noting
that officials in Tokyo and with the International Olympic Committee are
starting to acknowledge that holding a safe Olympic Games is no longer vi-
able, given the grave situation with the coronavirus. Such media reports now
appear regularly.
And yet in his policy speech on January 18 marking the opening of the
Japanese parliament, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga confidently asserted
that the Tokyo Olympics would be held as proof that humankind had over-
come the pandemic. But it was humankind who made the environments
and social structures that allowed the virus to spread in the first place.
Destroying the planet and natural ecosystems as well as the increased move-
ment of people due to globalization are directly leading to new viruses and
4infectious diseases.
What is needed are not empty claims about “overcoming” the corona-
virus, but a practical way to live with the risk of such viruses and diseases.
While vaccines have finally appeared, there are still concerns about their
safety. Our first priority must be to bring infections down, to ensure our
healthcare systems are able to deal with serious cases, and to assist the people
who have suffered economically and socially from the pandemic. It is un-
imaginable to hold the Olympics at this time.
Long before the pandemic, though, we were already calling the Olym-
pics a disaster and campaigning for them to be canceled. This pamphlet ex-
plains 20 reasons for opposing the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games:
20 reasons they are a disaster. From here in Japan, where Fukushima and the
coronavirus have both led to states of emergency, we say “No!” to what
Naomi Klein calls the Pandemic Shock Doctrine, whereby the pandemic is
the pretext for introducing mass digital surveillance by Big Tech. This isn’t
only about Tokyo. We don’t want the Olympics in Paris, Los Angeles, or
anywhere. People around the world are now starting to dream of a society
without the Olympics. Let’s seize the chance to turn this dream into a real-
ity and end the Olympics once and for all. Join us for the final push to make
this happen!
No 2020 Olympics Disaster OkotowaLink
January 25, 2021

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