The ‘Nolympians’ giving the IOC a run for its money

Activists say the sports are incidental to the money-making opportunities offered by the extravaganza.

Long before Tokyo 2020 was saddled with cost overruns, scandals over sexism and fears it would turn into a COVID-19 super-spreader event, anti-Olympics activists were already calling the whole thing a disaster. That was why one year before the pandemic-hit Games were originally slated to open in late July 2020, anti-Olympic activists convened in Japan for the first ever global summit of “NOlympians”, as those opposed to the Games are known. The pow-wow of NOlympians signalled that once ad hoc localised opposition to Olympic events had gone global.