Olympics: 20 Or 21?

After almost a month of competing between the greatest of athletes, the Tokyo Olympics 2020 has ended. But wait, you say, isn’t this 2021? Why has everyone got the date wrong? Things were all planned that way.

As in the long history of the Olympics, an event gets held every four years. And with the previous one held in 2016 in Brazil, 2020 was the date for the next Olympics. So after much selection by the International Olympic Committee, the IOC, Tokyo, the capital of Japan, got picked. All was going well, with stadiums getting build and stuff getting branded. What’s branding? In simple words, if you own a design and want to make money off of it, you give a company the right to print it on their product.

Now comes the fascinating part. Since the Tokyo Olympics got scheduled to start July 2020, companies were getting the branding for “Tokyo 2020”. However, when the pandemic hit and gradually getting worse, officials decided to delay the event. Days turned into weeks. And weeks turned into months. As New Year came and went, when the Olympics were taking place still wasn’t sure. Finally, the dates got set yet again, with the Olympics starting in July of 2021. But now, officials faced a new problem: Should they call it the 2020 Olympics or the 2021 Olympics?

According to Professor Tigger, calling it the 2021 Olympics was much more logical. “Because the Olympics were taking place in 2021, calling it “2020” would seem, itself, strange. However, that wasn’t the case. Why? Branding. Merchandise and ads were made with “Tokyo 2020” on them, so a change in the name would mean that those products would be useless. Also, the medals and flags will need to change. That means more money getting spent. However, some are getting quite creative, with a design to turn the last zero in 2020 into an uppercase O, adding the letters “ne” behind, to make 202One.”

So what could you do? Well, since we’re still in a pandemic, keep wearing masks whenever you’re in public places, especially indoors or in enclosed spaces like elevators. Try to avoid crowded places, and be sure to disinfect your belongings and wash your hands every time you come home. That’s all there is to it. And share this with your friends. We will fight down this pandemic together. Charge! That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you, and do remember that it’s 2021. All this Olympics stuff could get you confused!