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EdA – Alan MARCHAL
The prefectures of Hokkaido and Fukushima, in northern Japan, have decided to ban the presence of spectators in the stands during the football, baseball and softball matches of the Olympic Games (23 July-8 August) which there are provided.
The governor of the Hokkaido region, Naomichi Suzuki, announced this decision late Friday evening, taking the Japanese authorities off guard, who had announced the day before that the trials would take place behind closed doors in the capital and neighboring departments but that spectators could be present at other competition venues.
“All the events planned in Sapporo will take place without spectators,” Suzuki said in a statement, referring to the five football matches planned in the capital of his region.
He said the restrictions put in place by the organizers were insufficient and would not limit the movement of people from Tokyo, where the number of new cases is rising sharply.
Sapporo must also host the marathon and several races. Olympic and local officials have already asked the public not to attend.
Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori, for his part, told a press conference on Saturday that the increase in coronavirus infections and the pressure on hospital beds in his region and in the greater Tokyo area l ‘urged fans to be banned from attending baseball and softball games in Fukushima.
Symbolic importance
This decision is of symbolic importance, because those responsible for Tokyo-2020 have long presented the next Olympic Games as “Reconstruction Games” intended to highlight the recovery of the “tohoku” region, located in the north and which includes the prefecture of Fukushima, after the deadly earthquake and tsunami of 2011 which caused a serious nuclear accident there.
Most of the Olympic venues are located in Tokyo.
“We have agreed that there will be no spectators at the venues in Tokyo,” Olympic Games Minister Tamayo Marukawa said Thursday after a meeting with all stakeholders at the Olympic Games, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Competitions taking place in three neighboring departments (Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa) will also be closed to the public, organizers said later.
For now, events planned in other departments, including Miyagi (northeast) or Shizuoka (center) are still likely to accept spectators, but on a limited basis.
These announcements came a few hours after the decision of the Japanese government to reinstate a state of health emergency in Tokyo from Monday until August 22, a device that will thus encompass the entire period of the Olympics, while the city identifies currently around 900 cases of Covid-19 per day.
