Tokyo\u2019s postponed Olympics will go ahead next year regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, IOC vice-president John Coates told AFP Monday, saying they would be the \u201cGames that conquered COVID-19\u201d. The Olympics have never been canceled outside of the world wars and Coates, speaking in a phone interview, was adamant that Tokyo Games will start on their revised date. \u201cIt will take place with or without COVID-19.<\/p>\n
The Games will start on July 23 next year,\u201d said Coates, who heads the International Olympic Committee\u2019s Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games. \u201cThe Games were going to be, their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,\u201d he added, referring to a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow very much these will be the Games that conquered COVID-19, the light at the end of the tunnel.\u201d In a historic decision, the 2020 Olympics were postponed because of the global march of the pandemic and they are now set to open on July 23, 2021.<\/p>\n
But Japan\u2019s 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 Games a second time beyond 2021.<\/p>\n
A recent poll found just one in four people in Japan want them to go ahead next year, with most backing either another postponement or cancellation. Coates said the Japanese government \u201chaven\u2019t dropped the baton at all\u201d following the postponement, despite the \u201cmonumental task\u201d of putting the event back a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore COVID-19, (IOC president) Thomas Bach said this is the best-prepared Games we\u2019ve ever seen, the venues were almost all finished, they are now finished, the village is amazing, all the transport arrangements, everything is fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s been postponed by one year, that\u2019s presented a monumental task in terms of re-securing all the venues\u2026 something like 43 hotels we had to get out of those contracts and re-negotiate for a year later. \u201cSponsorships had to be extended a year, broadcast rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
With much of that work underway or accomplished, a task force has been set up to look at the different scenarios in 2021 \u2014 from how border controls will affect the movement of athletes and officials, to whether fans can pack venues.<\/p>\n
The group, comprising Japanese and IOC officials, met for the first time last week. \u201cTheir job now is to look at all the different counter-measures that will be required for the Games to take place,\u201d said Coates, the long-time president of the Australian Olympic Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Olympics have never been canceled outside of the world wars and John Coates was adamant that the Tokyo Games will start on their revised date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":42694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[493,638],"class_list":["post-22507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olympics","tag-japan","tag-tokyo-olympics"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}