Japan clings to Olympics, despite rumors of cancellation
The Olympic rings near the National Stadium, the main stadium in Tokyo which will host the Olympics-2020, January 8, 2021 Behrouz MEHRI AFP / Archives
Text by: AFP
4 min
The Japanese Prime Minister and the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics, postponed last year due to the pandemic, reaffirmed on Friday January 22 their intention to hold them this summer, despite reports that the Japanese government had secretly given up.
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Tokyo (AFP)
"
I am determined
" to host a "
safe
"
Olympic Games
in Tokyo, as a sign of "
humanity's victory over the novel coronavirus,
" Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a parliamentary session.
In a statement, the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee also recalled Friday that it was "
fully focused
" on the preparations to host the Olympics, in unison with the Japanese government and the city of Tokyo, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
According to the British newspaper
The Times
, which quoted a source within the ruling coalition in Japan on Thursday, the government has already secretly declared the impossibility of organizing the Olympic Games this year, due to the global upsurge of the coronavirus, including in Japan.
To save face, the government would seek to ensure beforehand that Tokyo organizes the 2032 Olympics, the next available edition (after Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028), according to the
Times
.
Deputy Japanese government spokesperson Manabu Sakai said there was "
nothing true
" about the
Times
article
, and in Sydney Australian Olympic Committee boss Matt Carroll called "a
rumor. unfounded
”information on a cancellation of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“
These will be very different Games, with a focus on the athletes and their competitions,
” said Carroll.
In camera
In an interview Tuesday with AFP, the general manager of Tokyo-2020, Toshiro Muto, affirmed that "
the holding of the Games is our inflexible course
" but he did not exclude that these Olympics (23 July-8 August 2021 ) can be held with a limited number of spectators or without spectators at all.
Faced with the multiplication of doubts, the President of the IOC, Thomas Bach, himself stepped up to the plate Thursday.
"
We have no reason at this time to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not open on July 23 at the Olympic stadium in Tokyo,
" Bach said in an interview with the Japanese agency Kyodo, in all six months of the Olympics.
"
There is no plan B
" and "
we are totally committed to making these Games (Games) safe and successful,
" he said.
In March 2020, as the pandemic spread across the world, the IOC took the unprecedented decision to postpone the Games after Australia and Canada announced their intention not to send athletes to the Games. of Tokyo which were to open in July.
Last week, a key minister of the Japanese government, Taro Kono, expressed a dissenting voice, believing that nothing should be excluded for the Tokyo Olympics postponed to this year.
Fearing that the event will further exacerbate the pandemic in the country, Japanese public opinion is currently overwhelmingly opposed to hosting the Games, advocating a further postponement or outright cancellation, according to recent polls.
Opposition parliamentarians on Thursday called for the postponement or cancellation, and on Friday the Tokyo Medical Association suggested the event be held behind closed doors.
“
They must abandon the idea of celebrating the century by inviting people from different countries,
” its president Haruo Ozaki told
Asahi
newspaper
, calling for the Games “
without spectators
”.
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