Tokyo Olympics organisers discuss athletes' position in COVID-19 countermeasures meet
Sep 07, 2020
Tokyo [Japan], September 7 : The first coordination meeting for COVID-19 countermeasures at next year's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics was held on Friday.
The meeting was chaired by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary SUGITA Kazuhiro, representing the national government, and incorporated a comprehensive review of COVID-19 countermeasures. Representatives of the national government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo 2020 also attended the meeting.
"At this meeting, we discussed the current status of measures being taken to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and the issues that will need to be addressed in the future. We will now be reviewing in detail the issues likely to affect athletes, officials and spectators (in that order of priority) at each stage of their travels before, during and after the Games. We aim to complete our review by the end of the year. We subsequently plan to review measures related to the entry of the athletes to Japan," Tokyo Organising Committee said in a statement.
"Cooperation between the International Olympic Committee, International Paralympic Committee and the international federations will be indispensable when it comes to managing athletes' movements and activities, which will in turn be an essential part of containing any infections. We will continue our close collaboration with all relevant organisations," it added.
The conference was also attended by the Japanese Olympic Committee and Japan Paralympic Committee members, with infectious disease experts joining as advisors. Tokyo 2020 CEO MUTO Toshiro participated as one of the vice-chairmen of the conference, with other Tokyo 2020 directors also in attendance. From the JOC, Secretary-General FUKUI Tsuyoshi joined, with the JPC represented by Chairman KAWAI Junichi.
The postponed Tokyo Olympics will be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021 while the Paralympics will take place from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
