JO-2020: Tokyo seeks to reduce sails without canceling the Games

Postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are now forced to review their ambition. Organizers of the event are considering ways to reduce the sails of the Summer Olympics, said the governor of the Japanese capital, Thursday, June 4.

Yuriko Koike explained that Tokyo 2020 officials are examining what could be "streamlined and simplified" as the costs of the first games in history to be postponed increase. The Japanese media reported on a small opening ceremony and a limited number of spectators.

Tokyo 2020 organizers are considering ways to reduce the size of the Olympics, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. She talks about rationalization and simplification. They also mentioned a small opening ceremony and a limited number of spectators.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in late March the postponement of the world's largest sporting event due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus, which has already killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world and almost put an end to them. international travel in recent months.

Avoid outright cancellation

The Games are now scheduled to start on July 23, 2021, but the organizers are facing an unprecedented puzzle of systematic reorganization of venues, accommodation and transportation.

The daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter that everyone (athletes, officials and spectators) would be forced to undergo a coronavirus test. "The top priority is to avoid the worst case scenario, that of canceling the Games," a Japanese government source told the daily.

Tokyo 2020 spokesperson Masa Takaya declined to provide details at a press conference on Thursday, saying talks on measures against the coronavirus would take place "starting this fall".

2021, the last chance

IOC boss Thomas Bach said last month that 2021 would be the "last option" to host the Tokyo Olympics, stressing that they could not be postponed once again.

He had refused to say whether the existence of a vaccine would be a condition for the holding of the Olympic Games but had shown little enthusiasm at the idea of ​​organizing them without spectators.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it was "difficult" to organize the Games until the pandemic was brought under control. As for Yoshiro Mori, president of Tokyo 2020, he also said that the biggest sports gathering in the world would be canceled if the pandemic was not under control by then.

With AFP

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