Olympian challenge of body and spirit

Call it irony, or call it standing up to the face of calamity — the world’s largest gathering displaying the heights that human physical prowess and endurance can command and commandeer starts today, when human physical prowess and endurance face their biggest challenge, from a submicroscopic infectious agent. The three times the modern Olympic Games were cancelled — 1914, 1940, 1944 — were because of two World Wars. This time, a different kind of war is certainly afoot, but with the Games postponed, to ensure that ‘enough’ precautions have been taken against the Covid pandemic from today till August 8.

In these precarious times, despite all distractions, it will be the human body that will hold our centrestage — but, this time, for the glory and the awe the Olympics are meant to conjure up, not the body being ravaged by a disease.

The first Olympics to take place after the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of February 1918-April 1920 was in August 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium. Tokyo in 2021 is still in the clutches of the Covid pandemic, and unlike the 2,626 athletes from 29 nations a century ago, Japan will see more than 11,000 from 204 nations vying against each other for physical glory. Each discipline, starting from India’s first outing on Saturday 5.30 a.m. IST when archer Deepika Kumari aims for individual medal, will take place in stadia bereft of spectators. And, yet, who knows, in this enforced void where spectators will be cheering solely from behind screens physically distanced far away, certain medal sports — especially like archery, shooting and gymnastics that require concentration and hand-eye coordination — could have athletes reach earlier unreached heights. Think of it as studio recordings, rather than live concerts.