Tokyo 2020 Olympics Notebook - Day 23

Cash crisis? What cash crisis? Luxury car business thrives

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The coronavirus pandemic might have adversely affected many sectors of the global economy, but for high-end car dealers in Japan, the crisis has gone to their advantage. Because local sales for foreign luxury cars, priced at more that 10 million yen (about Sh10 million) has risen, merely owing to the fact that wealthy people cannot travel abroad to buy the luxury automobiles. It’s common to see various high-end cars on the streets of Tokyo with Ferrari and Bentley sales hitting record highs. Reports indicate that sales of foreign-made luxury passenger cars priced at ¥10 million or more surged 60.9 percent to 3,336 units in June from a year earlier. “The trend clearly contrasts with worsening living conditions for people on the other end of the financial spectrum,” a recent report on car sales states.

Extreme heat, then driving rain in Olympic stadium

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On Monday, we witnessed the extremes of Tokyo weather. At the tail-end of the morning session, temperatures at the National Stadium, venue of the track and field competition, hit 43 degrees. But at the start of the evening programme, heavy rain visited the stadium with athletes competing in the men’s steeplechase and women’s 5,000 metres grateful that the rain helped cool down heat on the track. High Tokyo temperatures have been a concern for Olympic organisers who were forced to shift the marathon and race walk competitions from Tokyo to the much cooler Sapporo in Hokkaido Prefecture. Last week, Russian archer Svetlana Gomboeva fell unconscious due to the heat after finishing her qualifying round.

Pressure builds over raising Japan's age of consent

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The age of consent has seen renewed scrutiny in Japan in recent months, after a Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) lawmaker made controversial comments during a party meeting on May 10 looking at whether to raise the age from 13 to 16, the Japan Times reports. “Hiranao Honda, 56, is reported to have said that he found it strange that he could be arrested if he had sex with a 14-year-old even if there was consent, assuming the age ends up rising. He apologized for the remarks before resigning from the party last Tuesday and as a lawmaker last Wednesday, and his political future is uncertain even as the debate over whether to raise the minimum age of consent continues,” the paper reported.