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From our special correspondent in Tokyo,
Short moment of marrade shared Sunday at Tokyo airport, during the first mandatory saliva test of the stay. Everyone spits as best they can in a funnel tube, but that’s never enough for the Japanese laboratory assistant equipped as a cosmonaut from head to toe (gown, gown, mask and visor). “More, more”, she repeats, laughing, while it’s almost painting the walls. So to speak, almost a respite in the administrative maze concocted by the organizing committee to welcome the population of various accredited (athletes, officials, sponsors, media…).
Five hours to get out of the airport
The latter had already been pulling the hair out of their ears for weeks about Russian doll applications that responded to the well-known principle of “you want the B153 form?” Very good, but for that you must have already filled in the C675 which is obtained by asking for the V144 ”. They discovered in real conditions an entry procedure in Japan of almost invigorating sophistication. At first, it almost looks like a fun treasure hunt, with a different workshop for each document, then very quickly, you remember that there is no treasure at the end, and that five hours to get out of a airport terminal is four too many.
Without speaking of the paradoxes escorting the said procedure. Why ask for so many tests – an average of ten over three weeks – without ever worrying about who is vaccinated or not? In the case of the media, why claim three days of quarantine in the hotel room, when you have to obtain at the same time saliva test kits for the first three days, then move to drop them off, thus breaking the quarantine?
Fact, the apparent rigidity of the protocol, sometimes exaggerated in the image of these “high five prohibited” signs multiplied at the airport, contrasts with a form of lightness at all the other ends of the chain. The team ” 20 minutes took the plane trip with part of the Polish Olympic team, and naively observed that there, people do not wear the mask in an enclosed space, or then poorly, and then not for very long, including the flight. Although brave, your special envoys have not flinched, because they are talking about a two-meter mirror cabinet, and when two-meter guys talk, those five-foot-five listen to them, rarely the other way around.
This was before we learned of the misadventure of six athletes and two members of the British management, forced into solitary confinement on their arrival after having been in contact with a person who tested positive on the plane, while a cluster threatens the South African football team, residing in the Olympic village (three positive for the moment).
“It went as we expected, that is to say with difficulty”
In short, there is no will here to blame more than reason the Polish delegation, which like us had to wait for several hours at the airport, some of its members slumped as best they could on Lilliputian chairs, the others stretched out by earth with sometimes electrodes to stimulate muscles atrophied by travel and waiting. It is moreover more or less the fate shared by the tricolor basketball players, crushed by Japan in preparation a few hours after a longuette arrival.
“It went as we expected, that is to say with difficulty”, summarized Vincent Collet. “We spent almost as much time at the airport as we did on the plane. I’m exaggerating a bit, but still that much, since it took us five hours to get out of the airport. I won’t go so far as to say that the experience was oppressive, but let’s say that we had never seen this before ”. In the process, the Blues learned that they could not play against Italy for a final adjustment, the Japanese authorities having estimated that a displacement of 100 kilometers was dispensable at this stage.
The vigilance of the organizing committee (TOCOG), if it questions its purely sporting consequences for athletes sometimes forced to train in the parking lot of their hotel in order to comply with health constraints, stick to the country’s aspirations. Even if it is necessary to underline the kindness and the availability of the volunteers met since our arrival, an immense majority of the Japanese do not want to hear about these Games in a context of resurgence of the pandemic (more than a thousand cases per day in Tokyo, in a state of emergency). The TOCOG also angered the two or three locals who had nothing against by sweetening the places already sold and by opting for a general closed session.
Six isolated British athletes, 0.18% positive tests
So the CIO turns them into boxes, using formulas and shocking figures. “We are probably talking about the best-controlled population ever seen”, estimates Pierre Ducrey, director of operations of the IOC, while only 55 tests were declared positive among the 30,000 carried out on 18,000 athletes, supervisors, officials, or journalists who arrived at the Japan since January 1, or 0.18% of participants. All were carefully isolated, like their contact cases, including in the Olympic village, where 6,000 athletes will meet at the height of the fortnight, in a structure designed to accommodate 17,000.
Despite one last subtlety – only one person per taxi when we are going to share the same room at the hotel, is that really useful? – the organizers are not so careful with the rest of the accredited once landed in town. The three-day quarantine seems more theoretical than anything else, and freedom of movement guaranteed the rest of the time, although we have to go through a small register available in the hotel lobby to indicate our exit time. , and come back within a quarter of an hour. The Japanese government has obviously chosen to trust the participants’ sense of discipline and their civility. A beautiful idea which sometimes clashes with the principles of reality.
A register to leave the hotel
So we can’t resist telling you about this little experience in the labyrinth. from Narita airport : a small room among others, ten desks lined up for the procedure, and as many chairs arranged in a column. The starting principle seems clear for our Japanese guests, namely to go up the column when the front chair is released and so on before reaching the desk. However, it is quickly the rat race, with (future) accredited people who go up the queue, like Parisian drivers in a hurry on the ring road.
And no one to point out to a particularly skilled Polish colleague that the mask is also worn on the nose. A little later, the latter will have to repeat his saliva test twice before being “released” by the authorities. Had he been positive, he would have had time to contaminate half of the waiting room, including us.
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