Still after a year and half the world is grappled in the clutches of Covid. The summer Olympics which was supposed to take place in 2020 was reportedly postponed due to the outbreak of Covid–19, but the games are scheduled to begin from 23rd July – 8th August, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Although much of Japan is under a state of emergency due to the pandemic, and polls indicate that the majority of the Japanese public would prefer that the games to be cancelled, organisers continue to say the event will go on as scheduled this summer. The International Olympic Committee has said it is now in the “operational phase” of planning, which means it is beginning to make final preparations on the ground for the hosting of the Games. And Dick Pound, the IOC’s longest-serving member, told The London Evening Standard in late May that only “Armageddon” could stop the Tokyo Olympics from being held at this point. The Tokyo Olympics will begin on Friday, July 23, with the opening ceremony at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium.
The opening ceremony will take place at 8 p.m. local time in Japan, which will be 7 a.m. ET in the United States. NBC will broadcast the entire opening ceremony live, with coverage slated to begin at 6:55 a.m. ET.
Volunteers at the event will be given a medal on which the word ‘volunteer’ will be written in 11 global languages, the word ‘swayamsevak’ will be written in Hindi too. Netizens believe this shows how India has gained stature on the global stage. BJP member Major Surendra Poonia shared the image claiming that the word ‘Swayamsevak’ is written on the medal which allegedly is to be given to the volunteers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Upon searching the keyword ‘olympic tokyo 2020 benevole volunteer’ on Google, an image from e-commerce platform eBay’s website came up. The description along with the image mentioned that it’s a ‘pin’. The website carried the images of the product from different angles and one can see that it appears to be a badge. This pin or badge is being sold on the website for the US $1.50, which is around Rs 111.
On looking up at the official website of Tokyo 2020, the images of the official medals unveiled by the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games were found. One can clearly spot the difference in the design of the product seen in the viral image and the official medals announced by Tokyo 2020. The Tokyo Organising Committee has issued three medals – gold, silver, and bronze, which has no resemblance to the medal’s photo circulated among the netizens.
Meanwhile, in the FAQ page of the official website, it states that the organising committee has no plan of issuing any completion certificate or medal for the volunteer activity. The website also has a list of all the items that will be provided to the volunteers. However, there is no account of the volunteer medal in the list.
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Dr Narinder Dhruv Batra also shared the picture of the said medal on his verified Facebook page. “Volunteer Medal for Volunteers in Tokyo Olympics, has SWAYAMSEWAK written on it in Hindi,” he wrote. But the post was taken down later. Following that Batra told India Today, “I have no idea if the person who sent this to me was aware of its source or he, too, had relied on a forwarded message. I can remove it if there’s something wrong about it. IOA has nothing to do with this volunteer medal news.”
Thus, the viral claim is misleading, as the image in the viral post is a badge from an e-commerce website.
