Will Tokyo be entitled to its Olympic Games? The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach has confirmed that the Olympic Games 2020, postponed for a year in response to the Covid-19 epidemic, will be canceled if they are not held in 2021.
Interview with IOC President Thomas Bach
* accepts no Tokyo Olympics beyond summer 2021
* hopes Games are “celebration of triumph over coronavirus”.
* refuses to rule out staging the Games behind closed doors
* acknowledges “mammoth task” to reorganize @BBCWorld @BBCNews pic.twitter.com/Ywo2F8vVw3
"I understand the position of our Japanese partners," he said in a BBC interview on Wednesday when asked about the words of the head of the organizing committee, Yoshiro Mori, who estimated at the end of April. that if the pandemic is still going on next summer "then we will have to cancel".
"Mammoth work"
"We cannot eternally employ 3,000 or 5,000 people on the organizing committee," continued Thomas Bach, who stressed the "mammoth work" represented by this postponement and the reorganization into stunts of the major competitions which result.
"We cannot change the world sporting calendar of all the main federations. We cannot leave the athletes in uncertainty," he argued.
While reiterating "the clear commitment that the Games will be held next July", Thomas Bach admitted that we must "be ready for different scenarios".
Measures of "quarantine for athletes, for part of the athletes, for other participants" cannot be excluded.
"The Olympic spirit is to unite the fans"
The IOC boss did not want to answer the question of whether the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus was a sine qua non condition for the holding of the Olympic Games, but did not hide his little enthusiasm for Games without spectators.
"This is what we do not want, because the Olympic spirit is to unite the fans, what makes the Games so unique is that there are spectators side by side came from all over the world in the same Olympic stadium, "said the former fencer.
"When we have a clear idea of what the world will look like on July 23, 2021, we will make the appropriate decisions," he said.
On March 24, the IOC announced the postponement by one year of the Tokyo Olympics originally scheduled from July 24 to August 9, 2020, a first for the modern era Olympics in peacetime. The Tokyo Games are now rescheduled from July 23 to August 8, 2021.
With AFP
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