Fleets of street-vacuuming machines have been working around the clock. At one ceremony, 700 cleaning ladies solemnly pledged to "do our best to carry out our internationally important duty." At a Shinto shrine, taxi company officials offered prayers "to keep our drivers from getting involved in accidents." At the Mitsukoshi department store, each day has begun with mass English lessons piped over the public address system. And at the Chitose Airport, Lieut. Colonel Toshio Tojo, son of the notorious World War II Prime Minister, has 200 soldiers keeping the runways free of snow. The scene is Sapporo, Japan, and the drama is the 1972 Winter Olympics. After six years and $688 million worth of preparation, the Sapporo games will be opened this week by Emperor Hirohito in what has been billed as the "World's Greatest Metropolis for Winter Sports."
It just may be, Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, is no quaint village tucked away in the mountains. Larger than Boston, it is a teeming industrial city (pop. 1,030,000) ringed by ice-blue lakes and volcanic mountains. For the 35 Olympic events, the Japanese have built 14 ultramodern facilities, none more than an hour's drive from the city, at a cost of $31 million, the largest expenditure ever for the Winter Games. From the breathtaking downhill course carved in the side of Mount Eniwa to the giant 50,000-seat Makomanai Speed-Skating Rink, Sapporo is a wintersports wonderland. After one launching off the steeply sculpted ski jump on Mount Okura, one jumper exclaimed: "You feel as though you're going to fly right over the city!"
Fried Squid. Accommodations at the Olympic Village are more down to earth. Destined to be a public housing complex after the games, the rooms were built to Japanese specifications with 7-ft. ceilings that many Western athletes find a trifle "repressive." Save for that, the Japanese hosts have anticipated every need right down to the installation of toilets equipped with heaters to prevent the water from freezing. The dining halls serve richly varied menus with items ranging from hamburgers and milkshakes to such local delicacies as hairy crab and fried squid. The village's sauna features an "enzyme ion bath" in which the athletes bury themselves in a pile of fermenting cedar sawdust. Every aspect of the games, in fact, from the new $119 million subway system that rolls on noiseless rubber tires to the crack team of abacus scorekeepers who back up the computers, was arranged with super-efficiency—sometimes to a fault. For the opening ceremonies, for example, officials have decided to ground the traditional flight of uncaged pigeons. The reason: the rites will be held in the speed skating arena and "pigeons might damage the glasslike surface."