PARALYMPIC
Sports writing, Dec 30 (EFE) .- A little less than eight months remain for the Paralympic Games in Tokyo to raise their curtain for an event that continues to awaken enthusiasm among athletes and organizers but not so much among the citizens of Japan.
Various polls released in recent days by Japanese media such as the public television channel NHK, the newspaper Asashi and the agencies Kyodo and Jiji Press reflect the concern of the Japanese with the evolution of the coronavirus pandemic and provide data in the that more than half of the country’s inhabitants think that the Games should not be held.
After concluding the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, the goal of the Tokyo organizers was for the Japanese event to surpass London 2012 in all records, considered by the Paralympic movement as the best in history so far.
The slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic suspends a large part of the expectations placed on these Tokyo Games, which, according to the International Paralympic Committee, have drastically reduced the cost of the event and will be carried out only with what is absolutely essential. .
For the organization, the priorities continue to be “to promote the knowledge of sport for the disabled, especially among the young and the elderly, and to achieve a city free of barriers for people with disabilities with the provision of buses with improved accessibility or the installation of platforms and elevators. in most of the metro and train stations ”.
THE SPORTS EXPERIENCE
In what the IPC does not doubt is that nothing that has to do with the purely sports section or may affect athletes will be cut.
4,350 athletes with physical, intellectual, visual disabilities or cerebral palsy from more than 160 countries are expected to travel to the Japanese capital, seeking some of the medals in the 540 events -272 men, 228 women and 40 mixed- that will be in I play 22 sports, new to badminton and taekwondo.
Russia will not be in Tokyo, sanctioned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport under the rules of the AMA until December 16, 2022 due to “the falsification of the Moscow laboratory database that made it impossible to check whether 145 of the 298 athletes suspects violated anti-doping rules between 2012 and 2015 ”.
The World Anti-Doping Agency considered that Russia tried to cover up possible positives and the CAS, in December 2020, confirmed the sanction, although leaving the punishment to two years and opening the door for them to be in Paris 2024.
Sports to be played in Tokyo are athletics, basketball, badminton, boccia, cycling, soccer, wheelchair hockey, horse riding, fencing, 5-a-side football, goalball, weightlifting, judo, swimming, triathlon, canoeing, rowing, rugby, tennis , table tennis, olympic shooting, archery and sitting volleyball.
GLOBAL COVERAGE
Tokyo 2020 will also have its official mascots, just like the rest of the Games. Miraitowa and Someity are Japanese. Miraitowa is named after the Japanese words ‘future’ and ‘eternity’, and Someity is named after someiyoshino, a type of cherry blossom. They have been designed by Ryo Taniguchi.
The Tokyo Paralympic Games will benefit from much wider broadcast coverage than ever before, with twenty-one disciplines from nineteen sports being shown live. That number will be higher than Rio, in which only twelve sports were broadcast.
One of the unknowns that seems to have been largely cleared up on December 17, through a statement from the IPC, was to know how the arrival, stay and departure of athletes will be.
“In the Olympic and Paralympic Village, a sampling center and an analysis room will be set up to carry out tests against the virus. If infections occur or are suspected among athletes and staff, the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee Infectious Disease Control Center will coordinate a prompt initial response, share information with relevant bodies, and manage medical care and the necessary hygiene responses, ”the statement said.
In addition, the Paralympic Committees of each country will have to adapt their arrival and departure protocols to ensure that athletes can arrive at the Village between seven and five days before the start of their competition and leave a maximum of two days after its completion.
WILL THERE BE A PUBLIC?
The final decision on whether there will be an audience at the venues and what percentage or maximum number of spectators allowed will be at the venues will be made next spring. The decision will be made based on infection levels in Japan and abroad and the development of the pandemic globally.
“The world needs the Games next summer, and for the one billion people with disabilities in the world, next year’s Paralympic Games have never been so important or so urgent. The Games will be a celebration of diversity and human prowess, a global display of resilience and the starting point for a better and more inclusive world, ”Brazilian Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee, told EFE.
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will be held from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
David ramiro
