{"id":22522,"date":"2021-06-23T12:29:54","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T06:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=115049"},"modified":"2021-06-23T12:29:54","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T06:59:54","slug":"the-organisers-of-tokyo-2020-have-banned-alcohol-but-have-defended-permitting-spectators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/olympics\/the-organisers-of-tokyo-2020-have-banned-alcohol-but-have-defended-permitting-spectators\/","title":{"rendered":"The organisers of Tokyo 2020 have banned alcohol but have defended permitting spectators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With just 30 days until the opening of an Olympic Games marred by the Covid-19 pandemic and controversy, Tokyo Olympics organisers agreed on Wednesday not to sell alcohol at venues while maintaining plans to allow thousands of people to attend.\u00a0<span style=\"text-transform: initial\">Earlier this week, media reports that organisers were considering allowing alcohol consumption in Olympic venues sparked public outrage, with the hashtag \u201ccancel the Olympic Games\u201d receiving tens of thousands of tweets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFollowing experts advice, the organising committee decided against selling and drinking alcoholic drinks at the venues to prevent the spread of infections,\u201d Tokyo Olympics President Seiko Hashimoto told reporters.\u00a0<span style=\"text-transform: initial\">Adding to that the sponsor Asahi Breweries agreed with the decision to ban alcohol sales at the venues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Alcohol sales in and around Tokyo have been prohibited after health experts warned that drinking would encourage personal contact, loud speaking, and mixing in bars, all of which could help spread the infection.\u00a0<span style=\"text-transform: initial\">Previously, Hashimoto backed the choice of the organisers to allow spectators into Olympic sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, Japanese medical experts said that barring spectators was the safest choice, but they also provided recommendations in their study on how to host the Games if spectators were accepted.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, organisers indicated up to 10,000 domestic spectators will be let into stadiums. Foreign guests are not permitted. <span style=\"text-transform: initial\">\u201cWe determined that doing the greatest preparations we can for a Games with spectators would be better,\u201d Hashimoto said at a media roundtable attended by Reuters on Tuesday, adding that the decision was by medical experts\u2019 advice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, I understand that holding the event without spectators would lower the risk, but there is evidence that there have been no clusters at other events and tournaments,\u201d Hashimoto said.\u00a0<span style=\"text-transform: initial\">Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has not ruled out the possibility of staging the Games without spectators if Tokyo is placed back under martial law, which was only lifted on June 21. The opening ceremony for the Games will take place on July 23.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Despite the widespread public worry that hosting hundreds of delegates from around the world could result in fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 infections, organisers have pressed ahead with preparations for the Games, which were postponed from 2020 because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With just 30 days until the opening of an Olympic Games marred by the Covid-19 pandemic and controversy, Tokyo Olympics\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":42709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1791,493,1526,389,1555,638],"class_list":["post-22522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-olympics","tag-athletes","tag-japan","tag-olympics","tag-sports","tag-tokyo","tag-tokyo-olympics"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22522","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\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}