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SYDNEY: The postponed Tokyo Olympics will go ahead next year regardless of the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates told Agence France-Presse on Monday, saying it would be the “ Games that conquered Covid ”. . “
The Olympics have never been canceled outside of the world wars and Coates, speaking in a telephone interview, insisted that the Tokyo Games would start on their revised date.
“It will take place with or without Covid. The Games will start on July 23 next year, ”said Coates, who heads the IOC Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games.
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“The Games were to be, their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,” he added, referring to a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan in 2011.
“Now, to a large extent, these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
In a landmark decision, the 2020 Olympics were postponed due to the global march of the pandemic and are now scheduled to open on July 23, 2021.
But Japan’s borders are still largely closed to foreign visitors and a vaccine is months or even years away, fueling speculation about whether the Games are feasible.
Japanese officials have made it clear that they will not delay the Games for the second time beyond 2021.
A recent poll found that only one in four people in Japan wanted them to move on next year, with the majority supporting another postponement or cancellation.
Coates stressed that the Japanese government “has not dropped the baton” after the postponement, despite the “monumental task” of delaying the event for a year.
“Before Covid, [IOC President] Thomas Bach said that these are the best prepared Games we have seen, the venues were almost all finished, now they are finished, the town is incredible, all the transportation arrangements, everything is fine, ”he said.
“Now it has been postponed a year, it has presented a monumental task in terms of re-insuring all the places … something like 43 hotels that we had to get out of those contracts and renegotiate for a year later … The sponsorships had to to extend to the year, transmission rights ”, he added.
With much of that work underway or completed, a task force has been established to look at the different scenarios in 2021, from how border controls will affect the movement of athletes and officials, to whether fans can fill the spots.
