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SYDNEY: The postponed Tokyo Olympics will go ahead next year regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, IOC Vice President John Coates told AFP on Monday (September 7), calling them 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 will begin on their revised date.
“It will take place with or without COVID. The Games will begin on July 23 next year,” said Coates, who heads the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games.
“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, these will be the Games that conquered COVID, the light at the end of the tunnel.”
READ: Comment: Reaching the 2021 Olympics is a victory Japan needs
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 want them to go ahead next year, and most support another postponement or cancellation.
READ: Pandemic Olympics: Japan begins talks on COVID-19 countermeasures
“MONUMENTAL TASK”
Coates said the Japanese government “has not dropped the baton” after the postponement, despite the “monumental task” of delaying the event by a year.
“Before COVID, (IOC President) Thomas Bach said these are the best prepared Games we have seen, the venues were almost all finished, now they are finished, the town is amazing, all the transportation arrangements, everything is fine. “. he said.
“Now it’s been postponed a year, a monumental task presented itself 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 be extended for a year, broadcasting rights.”
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.
The group, made up of Japanese and IOC officials, met for the first time last week.
“Your job now is to look at all the different countermeasures that will be necessary for the Games to take place,” said Coates, longtime chairman of the Australian Olympic Committee.
“Some countries will have it (COVID-19) under control, others will not. Therefore, we will have athletes coming from places where it is under control and others where it is not.
“There are 206 teams … so there is a huge task going on on the Japanese side.”
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