2020 Summer Paralympics
The 2020 Summer Paralympics (Japanese: 東京2020パラリンピック競技大会, Hepburn: Tōkyō Nizeronizero Pararinpikku Kyōgi Taikai), branded as the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, were an international multi-sport parasports event held from 24 August to 5 September 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. They were the 16th Summer Paralympic Games as organized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Host city
Tokyo, Japan
United by Emotion[a]
162 including Refugee Paralympic Team[2] and Russian Paralympic Committee[b]
4,403[2]
539 in 22 sports
24 August 2021
5 September 2021
Originally scheduled to take place from 25 August to 6 September 2020, both the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics were postponed by a year in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the rescheduled Games still referred to as Tokyo 2020 for marketing and branding purposes. As with the Olympics, the Games were largely held behind closed doors with no outside spectators due to a state of emergency in the Greater Tokyo Area and other prefectures. The Games were the second Summer Paralympics hosted by Tokyo since 1964, and the third Paralympics held in Japan overall since the 1998 Winter Paralympics in Nagano. Due to the postponement of the Paralympics because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also the first (and only) Paralympic Games to be held in an odd-numbered year and the first Summer Paralympics to be held in a non-leap year.
The Games featured 539 medal events in 22 sports, with badminton and taekwondo both making their Paralympic debut to replace football 7-a-side and sailing. China topped the medal table for the fifth consecutive Paralympics, with 96 golds and 207 total medals. Great Britain finished second for the ninth time, with 41 golds and 124 total medals. The United States finished third, with 37 golds, their best finish since the 2008 games, and 104 total medals. The Russian Paralympic Committee finished fourth, with a total of 36 golds and 118 total medals, putting them in third place when ranked by total medals.
Preparations[edit]
Transport[edit]
Ahead of the 2016 Summer Paralympics closing ceremony, Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike advocated for the city to improve its accessibility as a legacy project for the Games. She cited narrow roadways with no sidewalks, buildings constructed with narrow doorways, and low ceilings, as challenges that needed to be overcome. In particular, she called for a transition to underground power lines to facilitate the widening of roads.[4][5][6]
A number of Toyota e-Palette self-driving vehicles had been adapted to provide transport to athletes in the Paralympic Games village. On 27 August, however, the use of the vehicles was suspended after one collided with an athlete[7] before all vehicles were re-used 3 days later.[8][9]
Volunteers[edit]
In September 2018, applications to be volunteers at the Olympic and Paralympic Games were released. By January 2019 186,101 applications had been received. Interviews to whittle the numbers down began in February 2019 and training taking place in October 2019.[10] The volunteers at the venues were known as "Field Cast" and the volunteers in the city were known as "City Cast". These names were chosen from a shortlist of four out of an original 149 pairs of names. The other shortlisted names were "Shining Blue and Shining Blue Tokyo", "Games Anchor and City Anchor" and "Games Force and City Force". The names were chosen by the people who had applied to be volunteers at the games.[11]
Medals[edit]
The designs of the medals for the 2020 Summer Paralympics were unveiled on 25 August 2019;[12] as with the Olympic medals, they are constructed using recycled metals that were obtained through an electronics recycling programme.[13] The medals feature a design inspired by traditional folding hand fans to symbolise the shared experience of the Paralympics; alternating sectors containing textured areas visually and tactually depict flowers, leaves, rocks, water and wood to symbolise the geology of Japan. The pivot where the fan meets is stated to symbolise the unity of Paralympic athletes. The obverse of the medal contains an untextured version of the fan pattern, the Paralympic emblem, and inscriptions in braille. To aid those with visual impairments, the edges and ribbons of the medals contain one, two, or three circular indentations and silicone convex dots for gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively so that they can be easily identified by touch.[14][15]
The Games[edit]
Sports[edit]
The 2020 Summer Paralympics featured 539 events in 22 sports. Badminton and taekwondo made their Paralympic debut in Tokyo, while classifications were added or realigned in other sports; canoe, shooting, table tennis, track cycling, and wheelchair fencing saw increases in the number of medal events held, while there were reductions in athletics and swimming.[29][30]
Marketing[edit]
Logo[edit]
The emblems of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics were unveiled on 25 April 2016. The Paralympic emblem features a hand fan in a circle form, filled with an indigo-colored checkerboard pattern. The design is meant to "express a refined elegance and sophistication that exemplifies Japan".[59] The designs replaced a previous emblem which had been scrapped due to allegations that it plagiarized the logo of the Théâtre de Liège in Belgium.[60][61]
Broadcasting[edit]
The International Paralympic Committee anticipated that the 2020 Summer Paralympics would be seen by a global audience of at least 4.25 billion viewers, an increase over the estimated 4.1 billion of the 2016 Games.[65] Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) provided live broadcasts for 19 of the 22 sports, an increase from 16 in Rio.[66] Japanese broadcaster NHK aired coverage of selected events in 8K.[67][68] In markets without and with a dedicated rightsholder, the IPC streamed the Games on its YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages.[69]
In the United Kingdom, these were third Summer Paralympics to be broadcast by Channel 4, which planned to air at least 300 hours of coverage on free-to-air TV (with More4 dedicated primarily to team events), 1,200 hours of coverage via streaming, as well as a highlights program and The Last Leg nightly. The broadcaster launched a trailer directed by Bradford Young entitled "Super. Human." in mid-July 2021, which aimed to focus on the "realities" of the lives of Paralympic athletes, and "the sacrifices they make in pursuit of greatness".[70][71][72]
In the United States, NBCUniversal aired 1,200 hours of coverage on Peacock, NBCSN, and Olympic Channel, while NBC broadcast five highlights programs over the course of the Games and afterward (with three airing in primetime), which "[showcased] the incredible backstories of the athletes and teams competing in Tokyo".[73]
Canadian media rights was once again led by the CBC, with 120 hours of television coverage, along with broadcasts by Sportsnet and AMI-tv.[74]
In Australia, the Seven Network offered one free-to-air channel broadcast via either their Channel 7 or 7mate channels and up to 16 free streaming channels via the online 7plus service.[75]
In New Zealand, the Games were broadcast by TVNZ Duke. TVNZ faced criticism for the scale of its coverage, including a lack of streaming coverage, and the TVNZ broadcast and OBS world feed missing coverage of events involving local athletes. On 2 September, citing the criticism, TVNZ announced that it would waive the geoblocking for the IPC's official streams on YouTube.[69]
In India, Eurosport India and Discovery+ debuted as a new local rightsholder, focusing on coverage of events involving Indian athletes.[76]
For the first time in Chile, the Paralympics were broadcast on TVN.[77]
In Brazil, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were broadcast on Grupo Globo platforms Sportv, Globoplay and for the first time some events was broadcast live on Rede Globo free-to-air channel at late nights and early mornings. The games were sublicensed to a public broadcasters consortium led by TV Brasil and TV Cultura.[78][79]
In Malaysia, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were broadcast on Astro Arena HD channel 801.[80]
In Singapore, selected live events were telecast on Mediacorp Channel 5 while the rest of the coverage was streamed on meWATCH. Selected highlights also appeared on the Mediacorp Entertainment YouTube channel.[81]
In the Philippines, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were broadcast on cable channel TAP Sports and was streamed online on TAP Go.[82]
Concerns and controversies[edit]
Student attendees and COVID-19[edit]
Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike pressed ahead for students to be allowed to attend the Paralympics with the Paralympic organizing committee in Tokyo arguing "it's important to have students view athletes with disabilities" for their education on disability. This has been remarked on due to their being a state of emergency in Tokyo concerning the illness.[83] Chiba Prefecture later dropped from the program due to two teachers being found to have COVID-19 infections.[84]
Men's judo 81 kg[edit]
Japan's Aramitsu Kitazono was scheduled to compete in the round of 16 events of the men's 81 kg category. However, he was forced to withdraw at the last minute, two days before his scheduled event after sustaining injuries to his head and legs during an incident that happened on 26 August 2021 at the Paralympics Village.[87] It was revealed Aramitsu was hit by a Toyota e-Palette driverless vehicle, which was under manual control by an operator, when he was walking on the pedestrian crossing.[88] His opponent Dmytro Solovey of Ukraine automatically qualified to the quarterfinals as a result of Aramitsu's late withdrawal.
Men's shot put (F20) final[edit]
Malaysian shot putter (F20 class), Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, arrived three minutes late for the event but was cleared to compete.[89] In this event on 31 August 2021, he originally won the gold medal in the men's shot put F20 event, thus defending his title in Rio 2016 and breaking a new world record. However, after the event had finished, his gold was stripped after a protest from the Ukrainian delegation, citing that Ziyad came late to the call room. Other than Ziyad, Australian Todd Hodgets and Ecuadorian Jordi Villalba were also disqualified from the event for 'Failure to Report to the Call Room'.[90][91]
Later, Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister, Ahmad Faizal Azumu issued a statement via his Twitter account, stating that the National Paralympic Committees of Malaysia, Australia, and Ecuador has made a joint-counter protest to opposing the protest made by the Ukrainian delegation.
However, the appeal from three NPC's has been rejected, and Ukrainian Maksym Koval remains as the gold medal winner.[92]
After the events, some social media accounts from Ukraine were spammed by hateful comments from Malaysians, including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's Instagram account. Koval's Instagram account was also hacked by Malaysian cyber troopers due to the result.[93] This action caused the official Facebook account of the Ukrainian Embassy in Malaysia to be deactivated, and the Embassy's official Twitter account set to private.[94]
Other incidents[edit]
Forty officers from Yamanashi Prefectural Police, who were tasked to support local police at venues and to control traffic during the Games, were removed from duty by Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) and sent home following numerous incidents. This included visiting brothels, drinking in their dormitories (which is against regulations) and in bars surrounding Kinshichō Station, Sumida, which then descended into drunken brawls with civilian bystanders. That latter incident led the TMPD to intervene, which led to the officers being caught.[95]