Spectators at Olympic events in Hokkaido also to be banned

I’d like to stand in front of the politicians and the Japanese Olympic Committee and shout “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YA DOING!!!”

While Hokkaido will also stage the men's and women's marathon and race walk events between Aug. 5 and 8, the organizers have already requested that the public refrain from gathering along the routes.

Yes the famous “refrain” word again - for once take a stance and make a bloody decision - understand complete lockdown cannot happen in Japan but stopping public to gather along marathon routes should be possible by local authorities (like they decide to stop public to gather at stadiums)??

the organizers are expected to review their plans regarding volunteers and medical staff.

ahhh yes.

The volunteers and medical staff.

more people to be screwed over by all the ineptness. More people that made plans weeks in advance but May have to cancel everything suddenly.

more great work by the Olympic committees.

Hope the people in Hokkaido will go in masses along the road for the marathon. It would actually mean a defiance to the authorities and a blow to the organization, showing citizens do not follow anymore the recommendations

All this could have been avoided if the leadership had some backbone.

Take 2 year delay (as was offered by the IOC)

They blew it.

Well, they should also hold the marathon on an off shore isolated island to stop people going up from Tokyo to see it.

People are definitely going to head up just to see the marathon, since that is basically the only event that most will be able to see.

A once in a life time opportunity and all that.

There should be an active independent social media campaign that encourages people to line the marathon route just to give the finger to the government and IOC. But what's the bet there would be pressure on Twitter, FB and Line to censor messages that promote it?

This is pathetic. An outdoor sport like the marathon is one of the lowest-risk spectator sport around.

To ensure compliance, television crews should also be banned from all Olympic events. After all , they are as likely to spread disease as anyone.

The reason the governor decided to ban spectators is because we don't want diseased ridden hordes coming up from Honshu and spreading the virus here. The governor explained that if the spectators were from Hokkaido he wouldn't have a problem with it. This makes sense.

Good decision keep Tokyo people out from spreading virus.

They spread virus at izakaya, hotel, train..

Some governor don't care look what happened to Okinawa after GW.

I can understand having a few events in the suburbs or neighbouring prefectures. But why are so many events half way round the country?