Team GB chief Mark England says he is ‘hugely confident’ the Olympics will take place as planned this summer as he named four more athletes to his squad.
Britain’s four-time Olympic gold medallist Matthew Pinsent this week said the rearranged Tokyo Games should be called off given the continued spread of coronavirus in Japan and around the world.
But after announcing Team GB’s shooting team for Tokyo, chef de mission England, who sits on an International Olympic Committee working group, insisted: “We are hugely confident of the Games going ahead in the summer. We certainly wouldn’t be announcing athletes if that wasn’t the case.”
The Prime Minister of Japan has commented that the Games will go ahead. The IOC are very confident in their planning for the Games to go ahead. There is nothing that we are hearing today that suggests the Games won’t go ahead.
“We are full steam ahead, planning to embark on Japan from the middle of July and that is our focus of attention.”
Tokyo 2020 boss Yoshiro Mori has said it is ‘absolutely impossible’ for the already rearranged Olympics to be postponed again and he will make a ‘very difficult decision’ on whether fans can attend by March.
England added: “Everybody is prepared to work through protocols to ensure that for those athletes in competition it is the safest possible environment that we can prepare for them.”
“What we do know at this stage is there is absolutely no impact on the number of support staff we can take.”
