Tokyo \u2013 The head of Japan\u2019s national Olympic committee on Friday dismissed media reports that the Japanese government has privately concluded it will have to cancel the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and said preparations were under way for the Games to go ahead as planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are planning how to hold a safe and secure Games in great detail, working closely with the International Olympic Committee and the World Health Organisation,\u201d Japan Olympic Committee chairman Yasuhiro Yamashita said in an interview with Reuters.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s Times reported on Friday that Tokyo was looking to get out of hosting the Games, drawing sharp criticism and flat denials from Japan\u2019s government and Olympics organisers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wrong and it\u2019s ridiculous even having to comment on this,\u201d Yamashita said of the reports, before asking not to be asked any \u201cworthless\u201d questions.<\/p>\n
Last year, the government had been pinning its hopes on a coronavirus vaccine to help make the Olympics safer, but more recently Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said vaccinations were not a prerequisite for athletes to participate in the Games.<\/p>\n
Yamashita, a gold medallist in judo at the 1984 Olympics, shied away from commenting on how the JOC planned to communicate with Japanese athletes about inoculations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a decision for the government to make. It\u2019s not for the JOC to decide,\u201d he said, adding that he couldn\u2019t give a definitive timeline given that the vaccines were not being distributed yet.<\/p>\n
Yamashita himself knows what it feels like to miss out on the Olympics, as he could not participate as an athlete in the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realised that I might have been the luckiest one of the athletes who missed out on the Moscow Olympics,\u201d he said, as he went on to win gold in Los Angeles four years later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be people who are still hurt from having their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity taken from them,\u201d he said, explaining the reasoning behind his push to include such former athletes in the torch relay for Tokyo 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt it was my responsibility as a human being to make sure that they could take part in this Olympics, in some way or form,\u201d he added. (Reuters)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tokyo \u2013 The head of Japan\u2019s national Olympic committee on Friday dismissed media reports that the Japanese government has privately concluded it will have to cancel the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and said preparations were under way for the Games to go ahead as planned. \u201cWe are planning how to hold a safe and secure Games […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":238261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[509],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n