"Every 40 years there are some 'cursed' Games, that's a fact," said Taro Aso, the vice prime minister of Japan, last week in the Japanese Parliament, referring to the growing pressure to cancel or postpone the Tokyo Olympics amid the continued spread of the new virus around the world.

This veteran politician is known in Japan for his propensity for verbal slips and controversial statements, although on that occasion he seemed to perfectly capture something that many Japanese people think: that bad luck haunts the Tokyo Games.

A ROAD FULL OF PITFALLS

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been the factor that has brought down the original plans for Tokyo 2020, the organization has been shaken almost from the very beginning by a succession of unfortunate decisions, blatant errors, and controversial measures.

One of the first problems was the alleged plagiarism of the Olympic logo, which forced the event organizers to withdraw it just a month after its presentation in 2015 and find a new emblem more linked to Japanese aesthetics and tradition.

Another symbol of the Olympics, the Olympic Stadium, also had to be completely remodeled. The pharaonic original design by the prestigious architect Zaha Hadid was discarded after its construction costs skyrocketed and amid a deluge of criticism.

The storm passed when a new, more sober and sustainable project by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was chosen, but this unforeseen event delayed the construction of the coliseum until the end of 2019 and prevented the stadium from hosting the Rugby World Cup of that year, as planned.

That same year, Tokyo 2020 experienced another shock with the vote-buying scandal to favor the Tokyo bid, which forced the resignation of the President of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC), Tsunekazu Takeda, considered one of the main responsible for Tokyo winning the Games.

Until the outbreak of COVID-19, the high temperatures in the Japanese capital during the summer were the main cause for concern about the Olympics, which led the International Olympic Committee to decide to move the Olympic marathon to Sapporo (north), against the organizers' wishes.

HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS OF THE "JINX"

To date, the Games have only been canceled or postponed on five occasions - including both summer and winter editions - and always due to war.

Two of these five failed Olympic Games were planned in Japan, the summer ones in Tokyo in 1940 and the winter ones in Sapporo (north) for the same year.

Japan was forced to give up both in 1938 because it was involved in the second Sino-Japanese War, a conflict that later became part of World War II.

The IOC awarded both Games to other countries, although the Olympic competitions would ultimately be canceled due to the ongoing global war, and they were not resumed until 1948 in London.

The missed opportunity of Tokyo, however, was compensated when it hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1964, while Sapporo was the host of the Winter Olympics in 1972.

The Games survived other dark episodes in recent contemporary history, such as the bloody political uprisings that preceded Mexico '68, the attacks against the Israeli Olympic team in Munich '72, or a bomb attack in the midst of Atlanta '96.

Japan currently holds the "record" as the only country with three canceled or postponed Olympic events, and hopes to make up for its bad luck in 2021, when the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled.

If so, the Japanese capital would join the select club of cities that have hosted two Summer Olympic Games... If the "curse" allows it.