Q&A: What's next for the Tokyo Olympics as virus spreads?
Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto is holding a teleconference on Wednesday with the IOC executive board in Switzerland. The 14-member board along with Bach made the big decisions.
There could be changes to the torch relay, which is set to open March 26 in Fukushima prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. The event is heavily sponsored by Coca-Cola and Toyota. It might face crowd limits the way Sunday’s Tokyo Marathon did.
Preseason baseball games are being played in empty stadiums, soccer’s J-League has suspended play, and a large Sumo event will be held without fans.
Training for Tokyo’s 80,000 unpaid volunteers has been postponed until at least May.
A month ago, Muto said he was “seriously worried” by the spread of the virus. He has become more cautious with his words since then.
There are 18 remaining test events. Many are small and involve only Japanese athletes, a chance for organizers to test venues and logistics. Two in the next several weeks are planned to have non-Japanese attending: Paralympic wheelchair rugby on March 12-15, and a gymnastics meet on April 4-6. They’ll be watched to see if non-Japanese athletes compete.
Crowd restrictions could be put in place, although many don’t call for fans in the first place.
Officials announced on Monday that an Olympic baseball qualifying event was postponed from April to June. It will be held in Taiwan as scheduled, but on June 17-21 instead of April 1-5. The World Baseball Softball Conference said it was because of “player, personnel and spectator health and safety measures against the spread of the coronavirus.”
Olympic qualifiers have been moved from China. Bach said that many Chinese teams and athletes are out of China and training elsewhere: the table tennis team is in Qatar, the women’s basketball team is in Croatia, and wrestlers are in Serbia.
“We have managed to move qualification competitions and tournaments within weeks from China to other countries where the safety of the athletes could be ensured,” Bach said.