Tokyo Olympics organizers seem to be leaning away from starting the rescheduled Games in the spring of next year. The signs point toward the summer.
Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori suggested that there would be no major change from the plans they had for this year.
“The Games are meant to be in summer, so we should be thinking of a time between June and September,” Japanese news agency Kyodo reported Mori saying on Saturday.
Photo: AP
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach, after the postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in Switzerland on Tuesday last week, left open the possibility of spring dates.
The postponed Games were to have opened on July 24 and closed on Aug. 9.
Mori suggested that some decisions could be made as early as this week when the organizing committee’s executive board meets.
Any final decision would be made between local organizers and the IOC, and hundreds of sponsors, sports federations and broadcasters.
Athletes have been left in limbo by the postponement. Many have been forced to stop training because of the threat of the virus. Even those who can train have no idea about how to schedule to reach peak fitness at the right time.
Mori and organizing committee chief executive officer Toshiro Muto have said that the added cost of rescheduling would be “enormous.”
Early estimates put those costs at between US$2 billion and US$3 billion, with the Japanese government and local administrations likely to foot most of the bills.
Tokyo organizers say they are spending US$12.6 billion to stage the Games.
However, a government audit report said it would cost at least twice that much. All but US$5.6 billion is public money.
The Switzerland-based IOC has contributed US$1.3 billion to organize the Tokyo Olympics, according to local organizing committee documents.
It has a reserve fund of about US$2 billion for such emergencies and also has insurance coverage.
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