Tokyo Olympics: logistics nightmare sees Fiji team fly ‘cargo class’ as Sri Lankan athletes go via Middle East instead of Singapore

Fiji had tried to coordinate with other South Pacific nations to ‘do a milk run’ and collect their athletes as well, but found it ‘wasn’t commercially viable’
Other teams, such as Sri Lanka’s, are set to travel thousands of kilometres in the wrong direction amid upended flight schedules and closed borders

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Bloomberg

Published: 11:46am, 5 Jul 2021

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Ensuring 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries descend on one city over the course of 16 days is a logistical challenge at the best of times. Now consider doing it at the tail end of a pandemic that has upended airlines’ flight schedules, closed international borders and made any movement without jabs and multiple Covid-19 tests impossible.

For hundreds of Olympic organising officials eyeing the start of the Tokyo Games in just 18 days it is a major headache. Forget about medal tallies and post-race parties – to the limited extent they are permitted at all – just getting to Japan on time is half the battle.

The team from Fiji, a tiny Pacific island nation best known for its pristine beaches and tropical seas, isn’t flying coach so much as cargo – the Rugby Sevens men's and women's, plus a handful of other athletes including some swimmers and sailors, are flying from Nadi to Narita on a service that generally transports chilled seafood and express mail.

Police enforce mandatory face mask protocols in Fiji's capital Suva last month. Photo: AFP

“Travel is definitely a major challenge,” said Lorraine Mar, head of the Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee. “Fiji Airways isn’t doing any commercial flights at the current time so we’re going up on a cargo run.”

Mar said Fiji was trying to coordinate with other South Pacific nations to “do a milk run around the other islands to collect everyone, but it wasn’t commercially viable”.

Papua New Guinea’s team plans to fly to Brisbane and then onto Tokyo while Samoa’s squad is likely to go first to Auckland and then fly Air New Zealand, she said.

Other teams are finding they have to travel thousands of kilometres in the wrong direction before making their way to Japan.

Under normal circumstances, the Sri Lankan team would have taken a flight to Singapore and from there onto Tokyo. But with Covid-19 cases still averaging almost 2,000 a day, Sri Lanka, an island to the south of India, is on many countries’ banned lists. Singapore does not allow anyone with a recent travel history to even transit through the city state.

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As a result, the 10-strong team across disciplines including badminton, judo and archery, is booked on Qatar Airways via Doha, according to National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka President Suresh Subramaniam. They have got a backup flight on Sri Lankan Airlines in case the situation changes.

“I hope and pray nobody falls ill once we go to Japan,” Subramaniam said. “We’ve got an extra doctor flying with us this time to look after any Covid issues. We’re taking every precaution.”

Although most athletes have been fully vaccinated and Games organisers require negative Covid-19 tests before arrival, there have already been some upsets. A member of Uganda’s Olympic squad tested positive in Japan last month, despite having been inoculated earlier, with a second team member confirmed as having the virus a few days later. On Sunday, a member of Serbia’s Olympic rowing team also tested positive on arrival in Japan.

Even the fastest woman alive cannot avoid all the logistical hurdles along the road to this year’s extraordinary Olympics, which will be held with no international spectators and strict social-distancing measures that include rules around how many hours after their race athletes must leave the Olympic Village.

Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce faces a labyrinth of connecting flights, layovers and paperwork to get to Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the odds-on favourite for the women’s 100 metres, faces a labyrinth of connecting flights, layovers and paperwork just to get to Tokyo. “I have a Jamaican passport so it’s even more difficult for me to travel,” the two-time Olympic champion said.

For the 34-year-old sprinter, the trip is a more than 12,000km (8,000-mile) journey. Fraser-Pryce anticipates she will travel from her home in Kingston to Miami, then on to London to catch a connecting flight bound for Tokyo. Because the pandemic has elevated fares, the cheapest flight from Kingston to Tokyo in economy class runs to nearly US$5,000 on Expedia.com

The Brazilian delegation, meanwhile – a large group of almost 300 athletes competing in events from fencing to skateboarding, shooting, swimming and gymnastics – had to scramble to get flights on Deutsche Lufthansa AG after its original carrier Air Canada cancelled flights that would have taken the team via Toronto.

“Due to the pandemic, we had to make some necessary changes that demanded creativity,” Brazilian Olympic Committee President Paulo Wanderley Teixeira said, adding that even getting the sporting equipment to Tokyo has been a “true war operation”.

“We also had a few surprises regarding airline tickets. For example, we had a contract with an airline and had already paid 80 per cent, but they changed their route and cancelled,” Teixeria said. Flying Lufthansa via Frankfurt is more costly but at least the team is able to pick up some of its athletes who happen to be training in Europe en route, he said.

We usually think of the race … but now the fear of the virus is also running in our minds

Selemon Barega, Ethiopian long-distance runner

Another particular logistics problem of holding the Games during a pandemic has been that many athletes have not been able to train in locations they would have normally otherwise. Difficulty travelling internationally has also made getting to the necessary qualifying events extremely tricky.

Jamaica’s track team would typically have trained and competed in Europe for a few weeks before the Games. An earlier plan to train in Tottori, about 640km (400 miles) west of Tokyo, was also scrapped, according to Fraser-Pryce. That means she will get less time to work out the passing of the baton to other teammates in the relay.

Argentine sailor Santiago Lange, who won gold at Rio in 2016, is one of the luckier ones, having escaped South America to Sicily in Italy, where the wind and weather conditions are similar to Japan. He and his crew mate Cecilia Carranza Saroli are now in Barcelona, waiting for their flight to Tokyo later this week.

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“We normally have at least 90 days to get to know the conditions, and now we’ll have only eight. Those eight days for our particular sport are not enough,” said Lange, who was not able to sail in Argentina for several months because of Covid-19 restrictions last year.

In the pair’s rented house in Sicily, they put up pictures of Mount Fuji to stay mentally connected. “In normal circumstances, we’d compete in at least 10 competitions a year. We did only two last year,” he said.

And of course, as athletes in far-flung places that are not international hubs check their luggage and boarding passes one last time, the virus that has laid waste to so many lives, hopes and dreams is never far from their thoughts.

“We usually think of the race,” said Selemon Barega, an Ethiopian long-distance runner who competes primarily in the 5,000 metres. “But now the fear of the virus is also running in our minds.”

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