Tokyo Olympics will go ahead in 2021 ‘with or without Covid,’ the International Olympic Committee vice president said today, Dailymail report.
The Olympics has never been cancelled outside of the world wars and John Coates vowed that the competition in Japan would be the ‘Games that conquered Covid.’
‘It will take place with or without Covid. The Games will start on July 23 next year,’ said Coates, head of the IOC’s Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games.
‘The Games were going to be the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,’ he said, referring to a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in 2011.
‘Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel.’
In a landmark decision, the 2020 Olympics was postponed because of the global march of the pandemic. The Games are now set 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, feeding speculation about whether the Games are feasible at all.
Japanese officials have made clear they would not delay the event a second time beyond 2021.
There are signs that public enthusiasm in Japan is waning after a recent poll found just one in four Japanese want them to go ahead next year, with most backing either another postponement or a cancellation.
Coates said the Japanese government ‘haven’t dropped the baton at all’ following the postponement, despite the ‘monumental task’ of putting the event back a year.
‘Before Covid, (IOC president) Thomas Bach said this is the best prepared Games we’ve ever seen, the venues were almost all finished, they are now finished, the village is amazing, all the transport arrangements, everything is fine,’ he said.
‘Now it’s been postponed by one year, that’s presented a monumental task in terms of re-securing all the venues… something like 43 hotels we had to get out of those contracts and re-negotiate for a year later.
‘Sponsorships had to be extended a year, broadcast rights.’
With much of that work underway, or accomplished, a task force has been set up to look at the different scenarios in 2021 — from how border controls will affect the movement of athletes, to whether fans can pack venues and how to keep stadiums safe.
