By Stephen Wade / The Associated Press
TOKYO—For fans, athletes and volunteers, next year’s Tokyo Olympics could become known as the get-up-early games.
Hoping to beat the summer heat in the Japanese capital, organizers said on Tuesday that they will start the men’s 50-kilometer race walk final at 5:30 a.m. The men’s and women’s marathon finals go at 6 a.m.
Marathon swimming will kick off at 7 a.m., and the men’s and women’s triathlon start at 7:30 a.m.
Even women’s softball has some games scheduled for 9 a.m. No men’s baseball games will start before noon.
“Nine a.m. is early, that’s my impression,” said Reika Utsugi, the head coach of Japan’s women softball team, speaking through an interpreter. “But we will have one year for the preparation. Softball cannot decide the times.”
Softball and baseball were dropped after the 2008 Olympics, and are appearing because of the sports’ popularity in Japan.
The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were held in the fall and did not face heat problems. But modern Olympics can no longer be held in that timeframe, needing to avoid Europe’s crowded soccer schedule, and year-round scheduling of the big four sports in the United States—football, baseball, basketball and hockey.
Koji Murofushi, the sports director of the Tokyo Games and a Japanese Olympic gold medalist, said organizers had consulted about the schedule with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the governing bodies of the sports, and athletes and medical experts. He said athletes can adapt.
“When we look at the Olympic games as a whole, of course we need to consider the global audience and adjust and control the overall schedule,” Murofushi said, speaking through an interpreter. “Athletes, when they know the schedule in advance, can make an adjustment to prepare.”
As previously announced, the swimming finals will begin at 10:30 a.m. The swim schedule has nothing to do with the heat and will follow the pattern of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The morning schedule in Asia allows North American television to telecast the finals live in prime time in the evening.
American broadcaster NBC in 2011 agreed to pay the IOC $4.38 billion for TV rights through the 2020 Games. It later agreed to an extension through the 2032 Olympics, paying the IOC an added $7.75 billion.
Organizers say the first gold-medal event will be the women’s 10-meter air rifle, which will take place on July 25—the day after the opening ceremony.
Organizers have labeled August 8— the day before the closing ceremony—as “Super Saturday” with about 30 finals, the most of any single day. Finals will include men’s basketball, men’s soccer and men’s baseball.
The most difficult event to schedule might be surfing, which was added to the Tokyo Olympics. Organizers have blocked out eight days for the event, hoping surf’s up for at least four of them. It’s a four-day event.
“The competition schedule is subjected to change depending on the wave conditions,” organizers said.
BASKETBALL CUTS 2 GAMES
THE Olympic basketball tournament has been shortened for the 2020 Tokyo Games to cut the number of group matches from five to three for each team.
The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) says the new format will feature three four-team groups in both the men’s and women’s tournament.
The top two teams in each group are joined in the quarterfinals by the two best third-place teams.
At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics—where the US won both gold medals—teams were drawn in two groups of six, and so played five games in the first phase before entering the knockout bracket.
Fiba says the new format is “bringing additional interest to every game of the tournament already from the group phase.”
The wrestling tournament, meanwhile, will end with a women’s freestyle gold-medal match during six of the seven days of competition in various weight classes.
The Tokyo Organizing Committee announced the move on Tuesday, saying it will help ensure “high attendance” for each day of the tournament. The International Olympic Committee will likely appreciate the move, after it briefly booted the sport in 2013 in part because of concerns over gender equity.
Japan has been the dominant nation in women’s wrestling since it started at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Japanese have won 11 of the 18 gold medals at the last three Olympics.
United World Wrestling President Nenad Lalovic noted the good crowds at the 2016 Rio Games and expects this schedule “will help us reach even more fans and create a positive and energetic environment for all our competitors.”
The Greco-Roman discipline will begin August 2, followed by women’s and men’s freestyle. Women don’t wrestle Greco-Roman.
United World Wrestling is the international governing body, headquartered in Switzerland.
Image credits: AP