The Tokyo Games Add No Cheering and No Booze to the No Sex Rule at the No Fun Olympics

Kiichiro Sato. Shutterstock Images.

The 2020 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo begin exactly a month from now after a one year postponement. And perhaps not since the Meiji Restoration of 1868 reformed all governmental systems and turned an isolated Shogunate into a modern, industrialized world power have the people of Japan been so united in a cause. 

Just not the cause the International Olympic Committee wants. They're united in their opposition to these games being held at all. As of the last opinion poll, taken when Japan's Covid numbers reflected a 7-day average of 6,460 new cases, 83% of the public wants the Games either pushed back to next year or canceled altogether. Think about that percentage. We can't get 83% of the American public to agree that the Houston Astros stole a World Series. But there, more than 8 out of 10 people agree having the world come to their most crowded city to win medals is a bad idea. And one has to wonder how many of the other 17% only support it because they stand to make some serious yen in the deal. 

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And if the IOC is trying to sell the rest of us on what an electric good time this giant company picnic is going to be, they're doing a pisspoor job of it. First there was the announcement that they'd be carrying on the Olympic tradition of handing out condoms by the hundreds of thousands. But just on your way out the door. Because they want you to have fun, just not that particular brand of fun. 

Then they announced you can come watch the events. But only at 50% capacity. And don't think for a hot second the scoreboard is going to be lighting up with multilingual messages of "MAKE SOME NOISE!!!" On the contrary. Be prepared to be treated like you're at a public library:

Which might sound like a joke. A headline in The Onion or The Babylon Bee or the time Mike Veeck's Charleston RiverDogs had a 'Silent Night' promotion where the fans had to hold up signs to cheer, boo or signal the beer vendor. And if, like the RiverDogs did, the Games have ushers dressed as librarians shushing people, count me in because I've got a thing for that look. 

But just when you thought the IOC had found ways to squeeze every last drop of possible enjoyment out of the No Fun Olympics, they came up with yet another way:

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Whoo hoo! Paaartay! Do these guys know how to throw a rager or what? Come on over to my place, I'm having a bunch of people over. You can't be hooking up. I can't allow you to make any noise. And I'm only serving softball. BUT … I can promise you we'll not only be watching Track, but also Field!

Yeah, good luck with that. 

What are you trying to do, Tokyo? Notwithstanding the fact there's absolutely no link between sweet, nourishing booze and risk of Covid, what exactly do they think the world does when they travel but drink? It's certainly a bigger sport around the globe than Equestrian or Rhythm Gymnastics. The Olympic Games don't draw the most fit, athletic and healthy young adults in the world just because they're obsessed with being the best at Archery or Synchronized Swimming. They're in it for the drunken debauchery that ensues. It's a quadrennial orgy that would make Caligula ashamed of the lust-filled bacchanalias he threw. 

Drinking is such a part of the Olympic culture that even a region of the world known for it's dim view of the noble sport of binge drinking had to change their laws just to accommodate the international athletes coming to compete. Of course I'm talking about the formerly backwards, unenlightened Luddites of Salt Lake City. Ask anyone who spent time there pre-2002 and they'll tell you tales of all the hoops they had to jump through just to order a mixed drink in a ski lodge. But even Mitt Romney recognized the disaster they'd have on their hands if they told a bunch of Alpine Skiers from Italy and Half Pipe Snowboarders from Australia their consumption would be limited because Brigham Young was a teetotaler. They would've reduced the Rockies to rubble.

So congrats, Tokyo 2021. You've managed to do the impossible. Make the Olympics even worse than they were already going to be. I'll still probably be watching, but I won't draw a sober breath the entire time. How the people going there plan to make it tolerable, your guess is as good as mine.