Japan is “cornered” with the Tokyo Olympics scheduled in seven weeks, estimated on Friday a member of the local Olympic committee, and considered that the event “no longer made sense” but that it was too late to cancel it.
The JO, postponed last year due to the pandemic, will take place from July 23 to August 8, insist the Olympic authorities, the organizers of Tokyo-2020 and the Japanese government, despite the health situation and the opposition of the majority of Japanese.
“I think we have lost the opportunity to cancel them,” said former judoka and member of the Japanese Olympic Committee Kaori Yamaguchi, in an article published by the Kyodo agency.
“We have been trapped in a situation where we can no longer stop anything,” said this bronze medalist at the 1988 Seoul JO. “The Games no longer make sense and are held only by obligation,” he added.
The former athlete criticizes the attitude of the Japanese government, the Tokyo-2020 organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who “seem to want to avoid dialogue.”
Didn’t the JOs have to be a festival of peace? He wondered.
“The opposite of peace is to continue in a tough and stubborn position that consists in saying ‘people may be against it but they will change their minds when the Games start,'” Yamaguchi insisted.
According to multiple polls, the Japanese population is overwhelmingly against holding the Games this summer, because they fear it will worsen the health situation. Currently, 10 of the 47 regions of the archipelago are under a state of emergency.
IOC Vice President John Coates declared last month that the Games would take place even under a state of emergency in Tokyo. (GG) (AFP)