The eye-watering logistics of sending the Olympic team to Tokyo in the middle of a pandemic

For much of the past year, the Tokyo Olympic Games has seemed to exist in a limbo state amid an endless stream of conflicting headlines about whether global sport’s biggest event will go ahead in the middle of a pandemic.

After all the uncertainty and flux, something tangible happened for the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) this week: their first real “we’re on our way” moment.

Two 40-ft high cube containers packed with equipment and supplies for the New Zealand delegation of around 450 people left the dock, bound for the Olympic Games village in Tokyo.

The packing up of freight is the culmination of nearly five years of careful planning, the last year of which was conducted against the backdrop of changeable conditions as the goalposts shifted and, at times, completely faded from view.

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Spread out on the courtyard of Jacanna Customs and Freight’s New Lynn base, lies what was once 1500 line items on a spreadsheet. Now it sits piled up in boxes and pallets ready to be loaded into the container.

There’s the usual stuff you might expect to see for a sports tour - like Weetbix (by the carton load), snack packs, recovery drinks and strapping tape. Then there’s the additional items you wouldn’t immediately think of, like transformers and electrical equipment to ensure all the technology works on the Tokyo power supply, a full studio fitout to ensure broadcast partners link up with the athletes, and signage.

“You have to be a bit of a professional at tetris to fit it all in,” says Shaun Iwikau​, the NZOC’s team services project manager, who oversaw the packing of the two containers.

“There’s a lot of things to keep track of.”

Back in the offices of the NZOC’s Parnell headquarters, team services manager Natalie Tong​ is among the team responsible for collating and sourcing the equipment needed to create a safe and comfortable environment for the team in Tokyo.

Before Covid-19 muscled its way in on the scene, it was Tokyo’s stifling July heat that occupied a great deal of thinking and resource among high performance sport’s brains trust.

“One of the biggest stresses around Tokyo was the heat, so you would have seen we’ve got ice vests, ice baths, slushie machines, misting fans,” says Tong.

“We even need to think about things that you’d normally just be able to pop to the shop to get. Given the restrictions on movement around Tokyo, that’s not going to be an option. So we’re needing to be able to anticipate things and prepare accordingly.”

Tong says the shipment is heading off to Japan earlier than it usually would ahead of an Olympic Games to mitigate any potential shipping delays. With food and medical supplies on board, the containers must go through a stringent process on arrival to clear customs, before it is transported to the Games village in the waterfront district of Harumi.

In early July, an advanced team will arrive at the village to set up the New Zealand quarters.

The logistics of sending a team to a three-week multidisciplinary sports event are eye-watering at the best of times. Layer on top of that the added restrictions and complications posed by Covid-19, and the task becomes truly daunting.

Take just one example. Among the raft of countermeasures introduced by the International Olympic Committee in its “playbook” for Tokyo, is the requirement that once athletes have finished competing, they must leave the village within 48 hours. It has made the task of getting the expected contingent of athletes and support staff home a lot more difficult.

Tong says NZOC officials have effectively had to speculate at what stage of the competition an athlete or a team will be finished. They then have to work around the jigsaw puzzle of the limited global flight schedules to find flights home and then try and match those flights up with MIQ spots. For 450 people.

Then there’s the preventative measures that have to be put in place for the team. It is estimated that to comply with the strict protocols and best practice health and safety guidelines, the New Zealand delegation will require 69,000 masks for the three-week event, while a pallet of hand sanitiser has been shipped to Tokyo.

NZOC chief executive Kereyn Smith​ says her organisation has done a lot of work to secure mask stock, organising a laboratory partner to ensure Covid testing can be done and the results delivered in a timely manner, and liaising with Ministry of Health officials to ensure the entire delegation is vaccinated pre-departure.

Amid all of this, the NZOC have also been deep in advance planning for next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, which gets underway in early February, and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, beginning in July 2022.

“What you start to feel as the Games are washing up on us, it is like a tide coming in,” says Smith.

While it has been a busy time for the organisation, Smith says it has been more disruptive for the athletes, who have had to deal with the cancellation of qualifying and test events. She says one of the bonuses of the condensed Games schedule over the next 18 months is it will put the athletes firmly back in the spotlight.

“It’s really important for us that we are still talking and focusing on athletes achieving their dreams in a performance sense,” says Smith.

“With Covid, a lot of time and energy and focus has been drawn into that space, whether its prevention or keeping people safe and well, which is absolutely a priority, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is the Olympic Games. There will be athletes from 206 countries, and this is about New Zealand performing on a world stage, fulfilling their Olympic dreams.”