Hiro Komae / Associated Press
The Japanese government has’privately concluded “that the 2021 Olympics will have to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by Richard Lloyd Parry of The times.
“Nobody wants to be the first to say it, but the consensus is that it’s too difficult,” a source told Lloyd Parry. “Personally, I do not think it will happen.”
Japan is now trying to believe a “a face-saving way to announce the cancellation that opens up the possibility of Tokyo at a later date. ‘
In public and officially, both the The International Olympic Committee and Japanese Olympic organizers were adamant in the statement. that the Games will happen, according to the Associated Press. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga calls the holding of the 2021 games a testament to human victory against the coronavirus. ‘
But Dick Pound, a senior member of the IOC, said he ‘can not be sure “the Games will take place because”the persistent elephant in the room would be the push of the virus. ‘ Japanese Minister Taro Kono, a member of Suga’s cabinet, added that ‘everything is possible “and efforts to hold the Games” can go either way. ‘
Keith Mills, Deputy chairman of the organizing committee for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, told the BBC (h / t the AP) on Tuesday that he believes that cancellation plans have probably already been devised.
“But I think they will leave it until absolutely the last minute if the situation improves dramatically, in case the vaccinations roll out faster than we all hope,” he said. “It’s a difficult call, I do not want to be in their shoes.”
IOC President Thomas Bach wanted to suppress the controversy that the Games could be canceled.
“At the moment we have no reason to believe that the Tokyo Olympics will not open on July 23 at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium,” he said. the Kyodo News (c / o Victor Mather of the New York Times). “There is no plan B.”
He added that the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 were still on track to take place according to schedule.
The Tokyo Games were originally scheduled for the summer of 2020, but have been postponed due to the coronavirus. With uncertainty over the state of the July pandemic and question marks over the introduction of the coronavirus vaccine, this year’s event remains in the air.
If the Summer Olympics are canceled, it’s for the first time since World War II and could cost the IOC Television revenue of $ 1 billion per Mather. The IOC is a non-profit organization, but ‘90 percent of the revenue from the Games goes directly to the development of sports and athletes. ‘