Published on : 22/01/2021 – 08:04Modified : 22/01/2021 – 08:02
The Japanese Prime Minister and the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics, postponed last year due to the pandemic, reaffirmed Friday, January 22 their intention to hold them this summer, despite reports that the Japanese government had secretly given up.
Tokyo (AFP)
« I am determined “To host the Olympic Games” sure “In Tokyo, as a sign of” humanity’s victory over the novel coronavirus Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said during a parliamentary session.
In a statement, the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee also recalled on Friday that it was ” fully concentrated 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, who quoted a source in 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 Olympic Games of 2032, the next edition available (after Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028), still according to the Times.
Japanese government deputy spokesman Manabu Sakai said there was ” nothing true “In the article of Times and, in Sydney, Australian Olympic Committee boss Matt Carroll called ” unfounded rumor »Information on a cancellation of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
« These will be very different Games, with a focus on athletes and their competitions », a dit M. Carroll.
In camera
In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, Tokyo-2020 General Manager Toshiro Muto said that “ holding the Games is our inflexible course »But he did not exclude that these Olympics (July 23-August 8, 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. ” At this time, we have no reason to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not open on July 23 at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. ”, Said Mr. Bach in an interview with the Japanese agency Kyodo, at all six months of the Olympics.
« There is no plan B “And” we are totally committed to making these (Games) safe and successful », He hammered.
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 », Declared its president Haruo Ozaki to the newspaper Asahi by advocating the Games ” without spectators ».
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