The Olympics are indisputably the biggest sporting event in the world, but many Japanese athletes — fearful of sounding selfish amid the COVID-19 pandemic and under pressure to focus on their athletic activities — are facing a dilemma over how to express their concerns about participating.
Some athletes and officials, however, have broken their silence in recent weeks, expressing their honest feelings through mass media outlets as well as their own social media accounts.
In a long Twitter post in early February, two-time Olympic swimmer Yayoi Matsumoto questioned the decision by organizers to persist with the games even as so many other sporting events have been called off.