olympics Barney Cullum overcomes obstacles at the world’s greatest sporting event


was for the athletes that these Games needed to take place. “As much as I can dream, I can be,” read the tattoo ink on the ribs of Australian high-diver Melissa Wu. She had broken those same bones a year previously. The re-staging of the Games – after the purgatory of uncertain postponement – represented a final window before retirement. Not that she necessarily expected a gold medal.


The 28-year-old, who carries Chinese


Games behind closed doors R


eporting on an Olympics Games can be the most enriching of experiences. But the Tokyo Games


started inauspiciously. Checking into my hotel, I was


advised I would be obliged to take the tradesman’s lift to my room and – once I’d completed the mandatory three- day’s hard quarantine – that same elevator down to the ground level fire exit would be how I’d greet the rising sun each and every morning. I was not to show my face in the


foyer until the time came to return to reception on the morning of the closing ceremony, handing in my key and settling the room service tab. Food for my first 72 hours in Asia would all come via this route, with only evening dinners catered for. Planning for the other two meals had not been accommodated for under last-minute Covid protocols once the country’s state of emergency had been extended. I expect, physically, I could have


overcome the 24-hour guards, had I begun to feel extreme hunger. The


08 | theJournalist


size-zero Japanese freshers guarding the exit, presumably volunteers wanting their own Olympics experience of any kind, appeared qualified for the role only in the sense that they had bought derivative black ‘uniforms’ for the occasion, replete with ‘Security’ baseball caps. I was never going to break any of the


myriad rules imposed upon the press corps to prevent interaction with locals. The documents we’d all signed to stick to our rooms and sports venues came with the threat of a £500 fine should we stray even as far as a 7/11 store without express permission. We’d signed a pledge to maintain GPS tracking on our phones at all times too. In truth, the deterrents were unnecessary. The gravity of the fear felt by the Japanese at a time when their vaccination rates were behind those of the other nations was not lost on any participant here. Well, apart from the Georgian judokas who went sightseeing. They were rightly stripped of their accreditations. The black belts aside, it was the


athletes who made the Games. And it


heritage on her father’s side, lost her social confidence after brutal racial bullying as a child. Diving has always been Wu’s voice, she told me. The medal she won represented mere decoration for the relief at being empowered to perform again. A further bronze was claimed by 13-year-old skateboarder Sky Brown, the youngest Brit to earn a podium place in the third century in which the


Olympics have taken place. After a sterile but sadly necessary year of Zoom interviews,


“


We were relaying a story of their lives. After all the safety measures, we all felt safe, and we all felt like journalists again


what an occasion it was to attend a packed press conference once again to ask questions of the skaters. With two Japanese athletes earning the gold and silver, every square foot was taken up by beaming local volunteers as well as writers and crew from all over the world. We were relaying one of the stories of their lives. After all the safety measures to create our bubble, we all felt safe, and we all felt like journalists again. Having grown up in Japan, Brown


knew and was fond of her counterparts on the platform, describing one as among her dearest friends. It was refreshing to see such kinship between competitors and one can only imagine how motivating it must have been for children to hear the history-maker insist that “it honestly doesn’t matter how old you are – anyone can do it”. As with every Olympic Games, there


were so many stories for storytellers to tell. Many of us wondered whether we would be writing them right up until we were in the arenas, having avoided the dreaded ‘pings’. At the time of writing, it was too early


to say whether this will be remembered as a watershed for the regular return of international assignments after the pandemic. It felt like a beginning. The sun always rises first in the east regardless of whether there’s any breakfast.


SIPA US / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


RVLSOFT / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


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