Tokyo 2020: is it realistic to press ahead with the Olympics in spite of the continued Covid-19 threat?

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Published: 2:50pm, 8 Sep 2020Updated: 3:28pm, 8 Sep 2020

Tokyo 2020 should be held next year “at any cost” given athletes’ efforts to be ready, Japan’s Olympic minister said Tuesday, a day after the IOC’s John Coates told AFP that the postponed Games would go ahead in 2021 “with or without Covid”.

“For the Games next year, athletes are continuing to work hard in the environments they find themselves in. So I feel we have to hold it at any cost,” Seiko Hashimoto said when asked about International Olympic Committee vice-president Coates’s remarks.

“I think Mr Coates felt reassured that the Tokyo Games can be held with further close coordination of efforts,” she added.

Coates on Monday told AFP in an exclusive interview that he was confident the delayed Games would open as planned next year, vowing they will be the “Games that conquered Covid”.

“It will take place with or without Covid. The Games will start on July 23 next year,” said Coates, who heads the IOC’s Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games.

“The Games were going to be, their theme, the Reconstruction Games after the devastation of the tsunami,” he said, referring to the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.

“Now very much these will be the Games that conquered Covid, the light at the end of the tunnel.”