A 53-year-old Japanese woman has been arrested after she fired a water pistol at the Olympic torch during a relay in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, according to Japan Today.
Footage shows the lone gunwoman casually whipping out the water pistol as the runner approaches, and then effortlessly squirting the water right on target. She was truly a natural.
“No Olympics! Stop the Games!” she could be heard shouting in Japanese, before cops intercepted her squirts with little, plastic shields and detained her.
She was then arrested for “deliberately aiming at the runner and interfering with the relay.”
“You can’t shoot water at people for no good reason. She clearly wasn’t playing around – this isn’t child’s play,” Mito deputy police chief Noriaki Nagatsuka told Vice.
Some people would argue that shooting a water gun at an official event is the definition of child’s play. Oh well.
The Tokyo Olympics, set to open on July 23, has become increasingly unpopular in Japan after it was postponed for a year due to the pandemic.
On top of the usual gripes about spending and priorities, critics point out that only a fraction of the population has been vaccinated and that opening the country up to athletes and delegates from all over the world could be a recipe for disaster.
In fact a recent poll found 86% of Japanese people fear that COVID-19 cases will resurge if the Olympics goes ahead.
Japanese newspaper the Shinano Mainichi Shimbun summed up the feelings of the population in a recent editorial.
“We are in no mood to celebrate an event filled with fear and anxiety,” the newspaper said.
“The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics should be canceled […] the government must make the decision to protect the lives and livelihood of the people.”
A water pistol was never going to extinguish the Olympic Torch, which has its own internal ignition source. Nevertheless, the stunt still got everyone talking about why people want to can the Olympics, including us.
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