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© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Former IOC vice president says U.N. could decide fate of Tokyo Olympics
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Paul
The only people who will decide are the athletes themselves if they are prepared to or able to come and countries around the world if they are in a right condition to compete or not. Not UN not IOC and not JOC!!!
James
These numbers will likely go down and the Olympics will happen very safely it's going to be cancelled it's going to run very safely and successfully
ZENJI
Personnel Greed. A small number of officials stand to lose a lot of cash.
STOP THE GAMES.
TARA TAN KITAOKA
No Olympic period.
Wolfpack
First off are we to believe that the purpose of sport is the economy? That is the mindset that has corrupted the modern Olympics to begin with. What is the point of the “Olympic Movement” if it is driven by the needs of corporations? Also, I am always amazed at the attacks by expats on the Japanese for being nationalists - as if love and pride in ones own country is a sin. The Olympics was conceived as a competition between nations whereby passions can be channeled towards the noble combat of sport over war. If in modern sensibilities national pride is evil, the concept of Olympics itself is corrupted. Rubbish.
cleo
Mori was never mayor of Tokyo.
Maybe you’re confusing him with Masashi Mori mayor of Toyama.
kurisupisu
Maybe they could let the cat out of the bag now?
Or maybe,the organizers are just full of it?
Alan Harrison
This is the IOC getting ready to pass the buck.
can just hear it now when the law suits start “it wasn’t our decision”
let this be a lesson to any city crazy enough to bid for the Olympics.
I don't think that the Tokyo bid was ever about sport primarily. Sport has always seemed to be secondary to the Japanese economy and Japanese nationalism
Well even if these games are cancelled, Japan has upgraded it's physical infrastructure for future bidding.
However Japans mental and cultural infrastructure might require change.
Wolfpack
There are way too many people who have it drilled into their minds that all decisions must be made by a centralized authority. The decision is up to the IOC, Japan, and the individual countries who may or may not participate.
Kushiro
Olympics are ‘cursed’
Sam Watters
And there folks is the real issue!
Nadrew
The Olympics should have a permanent location in Greece.
kohakuebisu
Sapporo 2030. We must not let it happen. There is no bob track and no ski resort on Hokkaido big enough for the downhill. They will have to be built.
This would mean keeping unneeded facilities fully maintained for 11 extra years.
Do the hustle
Australia is currently trying to hold the Open Tennis with very few COVID cases and a few hundred international visitors and it’s proving to be near impossible. How is Tokyo going to hold an Olympic event with thousands of COVID cases and tens of thousands of visitors?
wanderlust
Looks like this is testing the waters as a possible face-saving move for the Tokyo government and the IOC, as well as the powers behind the games such as Dentsu, local OCs, and the inevitable insurance companies.
Takes all the responsibility for the cancellation away from them.
Maybe some blowback from Dick Pound's statement that athletes and the accompanying Olympic circus of officials, VIPs, sponsors, organisers, judges, broadcasters and media technicians must have the vaccine for the games to go ahead, instead of local people.
robert maes
Beyond madness. Needed his face in the press
natsu823
Where do infected corona athletes, fans, volunteers go in Japan?
Hospitals barely can handle now!
factchecker
I wouldn't be taking notice of anything Lord Gosper has to say. His history of nepotism and an apologist for the CCP is enough to ignore this idiot, forever.
borscht
Zoroto,
As of today, 13 cities have shown interest in being the 2032 Olympics host city. 13! Rotterdam/Amesterdam, northern Italy, London, a North/South Korea bid (centering on their capitals), Istanbul, Queensland, Madrid, Westphalia (13 different cities), Doha Qatar, Jakarta, Mumbai, Chengdu & Shanghai (separately).
If, however, Tokyo were to throw its billions and billions of already prepared structure into the ring, will the IOC look elsewhere for fresher money?
borscht
Postponing the Tokyo Olympics to 2024 will crash headlong into Paris. Paris had a vote. 2024 won. Then the IOC asked Paris if they could move to 2028 and let Los Angeles have 2024. Paris said no and Los Angeles agreed (thanks to a $1.5 billion payout from the IOC) to host the Olympics in 2028. In a 90-year-old stadium! for the third time and other existing stadia. A money maker in 1984.
So, no, moving it to 2024 isn’t an option.
TokyoJoe
Japan has invested a reported $25 billion
Just let that sink in.
SandyBeachHeaven
Um, in real terms, the Japanese government on behalf of its people decides the fate of the Olympics. If they say it is a no go, they are a sovereign country, and it becomes a no go.
Cricky
This whole debacle leads me straight to a Premium Monday.
dagon
The Super Premium Japan Sports Day, brought to you by Dentsu, has devolved into a sloppy wealth transfer from a put upon populace to Japan Inc./Gov and needs to be put out of its' misery. Unfortunately it has gotten to the stage where even this might not be enough to save the Japanese public from a host of harmful consequences.
Thanks Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party.
rainyday
Tokyo doesn’t even have sufficient countermeasures to deal with Covid now, let alone during a major international sporting event.
AG
Should a neutral party as UN be a key decision maker... then forget about the Olympics.
Any neutral party would conclude that Japan had its chance to prove that could control this pandemic, but failed to.
And without that control and a strong game plan, one simply cannot gather athletes, media etc from 205 countries safely.
I do not believe Olympics will go ahead, unfortunately as a huge sports fan, as Japan had an year to get ready for all this but chose to not adapt to the circumstances at all and just focus on the non-sense “superiority” propaganda.
Lets hope J Gov learned the lesson for future events, as this time the inaction was beyond disappointing.
This is a wake up call that Japan needs to let younger people with more energy and adaptability to take over top governmental roles, in order to remain a top economy for many decades to come. Otherwise its simply doomed.
jiji Xx
stickman
yes, reckon so..... also allows everyone ro pretend they're concerned about people, rather than the lucre.....
Chico3
Apparently, this is a kind of history repeating itself. I remember the last Athens Olympics where they almost didn't have the Olympics, due to SLOW movement with the facilities preparations. It wasn't until a new Olympic President was put in charge and got things moving to just barely having the Olympics there, or else, the Olympics would have occurred elsewhere. This was true. This time here, the IOC and Koike have been moving SLOWLY, causing tons of our taxpaying money, along with continual budget increase higher than Mt. Fuji. However, this time, the UN is stepping in. Why wasn't this done much earlier? The longer this is taking, the less people want this event to occur, and the more self-interest we've been seeing with the IOC and Tokyo.
Jandworld
As the pandemic is international with thousands dying every day in many countries it seems sensible to let a proven institution like the UN to decide about mass events in a democratic environment.
stickman1760
This is the IOC getting ready to pass the buck.
can just hear it now when the law suits start “it wasn’t our decision”
let this be a lesson to any city crazy enough to bid for the Olympics.
Redbear
"China set to hold the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022,"
and since China lied to the World about Covid and blocked a WHO team to Wuhan, should not China pay a price?
Speed
Make a stupid decision, achieve tragic results.
Jgovt. could've postponed it to 2024 and avoided this whole predicament.
Last summer the JOC was given a golden opportunity and they threw it (along
with our tax dollars) away.
smithinjapan
Japan only listens to the UN when begging for more heritage sites to be approved.