Hi, Christiaan Page here and welcome to 100 Days of Summer. Day 99, which made me think of 99 bottles of beer. But Let’s not sing that. This post is titled 525,600 Minutes. I don’t know if you know the show Rent. It was a Broadway musical released in 1996 and it had a fantastic title track. The track was titled Seasons of Love. In the song, there was this fantastic phrase of lyrics, 525,600 Minutes. And it really resonated with me because I thought, Wow, what a way to break down a year in terms of minutes we have. I thought it was quite fitting on the 99 days to ask the question, how many minutes is that? Well, if you’re wondering, it’s 142,560 minutes to go to the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Games. I guess the context of time and a countdown is important to think about. I remember every game I’ve been involved with, the countdown clock featuring prominently in the host city. Up until last year with COVID, it’s been a immovable date. We used to always make the presentations to OCGs and say it’s in a immovable date. Well, last year proved us a little bit wrong, but still, we’re now moving towards that immovable date.
We’ve got 99 days to go. And I know for me personally, that has always helped keep my focus. I like having goals set and achieving them. Also, it’s quite critical to set and achieve goals as the event is often an immovable date. We don’t have that flexibility to change the date and move it by a couple of days. We’ve got a lot of things relying on us to be able to deliver it. Most importantly, the athletes. Thinking about the athletes, their preparation, they’ve been preparing in most cases their whole life to get to this point. This is the pinnacle in their career, and therefore it is our responsibility to ensure that it happens, to allow them to achieve their best. That’s why I think it’s important to count milestones to ensure the event happens. I remember when I was working for London 2012, the CEO Paul Dyson, would say we’ve only got so many Thursdays to go before the opening ceremony on Friday night. In our case, we’ve got 14 Thursdays to go, until the opening ceremony on Friday, the 23rd of July 2021. What are you going to do with your 142,560 minutes as we head towards the opening ceremony of the games?
If you’ve got any ideas about what you would like me to discuss in the final 99 days, please drop them in the comments below. I would love to get your feedback and your thoughts. I am happy to share some of the insights into the preparation for the games. Have a great day, stay safe wherever you are, and bye for now
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