Tokyo Olympics: Summer Olympic Games 2020 Will Take Place ’With or Without COVID-19,’ Says IOC Vice-President John Coates
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted sporting events all over the world and Tokyo Olympics in no exception. The multi-sport tournament, which was initially scheduled to go underway in June this year, was postponed to 2021 due to the global health scare. Speculations were that the marquee tournament might get shifted even further as the coronavirus continues to spread. However, International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president John Coates has made it crystal clear that the Tokyo Olympics will start on June 23 next year regardless of the state of the virus.
"It will take place with or without Covid. The Games will start on July 23 next year," Coates was quoted as per saying by news agency AFP. "The Games were going to be, their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami," he added while referring to a calamitous earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011.
Interestingly, Coates also said that the Olympics games would help in winning the battle against the global pandemic. "Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel," he opined.
As per AFP, a recent poll found that just one in four people in Japan want Tokyo Olympics to go ahead next year, with most backing either another postponement or cancellation. However, the officials have made it crystal clear that the dates will not be shifted further.
Coates also said that the tournament was well prepared before coronavirus came into play and shifting Olympics for a year with a 'monumental task.'
"Before Covid, (IOC president) Thomas Bach said this is the best prepared Games we've ever seen, the venues were almost all finished, they are now finished, the village is amazing, all the transport arrangements, everything is fine," he said.
"Now it's been postponed by one year, that's presented a monumental task in terms of re-securing all the venues... something like 43 hotels we had to get out of those contracts and re-negotiate for a year later," he added further.
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