T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee pres­i­dent, Bri­an Lewis says he will be in full sup­port of the de­layed Tokyo Olympic Games set to come off with­in the next two months go-ahead even if it has to be done with­in the realms of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) in Japan.

On Fri­day, Tokyo 2020 Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mis­sion chair John Coates said the Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games would be able to take place should state of emer­gency mea­sures be in force at the time of the event.

Coates was speak­ing re­mote­ly at the end of the fi­nal three-day Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mis­sion meet­ing ahead of the Games.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) vice-pres­i­dent said that it was now "clear­er than ever" that the Games would be safe for every­one par­tic­i­pat­ing, as well as the gen­er­al pub­lic in Japan.

Coates was asked whether the Games would be able to take place should Tokyo be un­der a state of emer­gency re­stric­tions.

Nine ar­eas in Japan, in­clud­ing Tokyo, are cur­rent­ly un­der a state of emer­gency mea­sures un­til May 31.

Ok­i­nawa will be added to the state of emer­gency on May 23.

The mea­sures were aimed at com­bat­ting a rise in COVID-19 cas­es in Japan ear­li­er this month.

New cas­es have de­clined in re­cent days with 5,710 re­port­ed across the coun­try yes­ter­day, while Tokyo re­port­ed a drop to 649.

Coates high­light­ed the suc­cess­ful stag­ing of re­cent test events dur­ing the state of emer­gency mea­sures as ev­i­dence the Games could take place should re­stric­tions be in place while the event is held.

"We’ve suc­cess­ful­ly seen five sports hold their test events dur­ing the state of emer­gency," Coates said.

"All of the plans that we have in place to pro­tect the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of ath­letes and the peo­ple of Japan are based around the worst pos­si­ble cir­cum­stances, so the an­swer is ab­solute­ly yes.

"The ad­vice we have got from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and all of the sci­en­tif­ic ad­vice is that all the mea­sures we have out­lined in the play­books, the cur­rent it­er­a­tions of all those mea­sures are sat­is­fac­to­ry to en­sure a safe and se­cure Games in terms of health, and that’s whether there is a state of emer­gency or not."

It is hoped the fig­ure will be above 80 per cent by the time of the Games.

Coates added that con­sid­er­a­tion was be­ing giv­en to vac­ci­nat­ing peo­ple who will have close con­tact with ath­letes dur­ing the Games.

Coates said some Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees may vac­ci­nate oth­er per­son­nel trav­el­ling to the Games, in­clud­ing me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as the Aus­tralian Olympic Com­mit­tee - an or­gan­i­sa­tion he leads - have al­ready done.

The Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mis­sion added that the IOC has al­so de­vel­oped a pro­gramme which will see med­ical per­son­nel from abroad trav­el to the Games to as­sist the event.

The ini­tia­tive is aimed at re­duc­ing fears in Japan that med­ical staff could be re­al­lo­cat­ed to sup­port the Games.

Pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions are al­so set to con­duct COVID-19 test­ing dur­ing the Games to keep sup­ply sep­a­rate from the pub­lic sys­tem.

Tokyo 2020 Pres­i­dent Seiko Hashimo­to con­firmed that the num­ber of Games par­tic­i­pants from abroad had been re­duced to 59,000, com­pared to the ex­pect­ed 180,000 from last year.

These will in­clude 23,000 Games-re­lat­ed of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing from the IOC and In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions.

Olympic Broad­cast Ser­vices rep­re­sen­ta­tives and right­sh­old­ers will ac­count for 17,000 peo­ple dur­ing the Olympics, with 6,000 mem­bers of the me­dia ex­pect­ed.

Around 19,000 peo­ple are ex­pect­ed for the Par­a­lympic Games, in­clud­ing 9,000 of­fi­cials, 4,000 for broad­cast and 2,000 me­dia of­fi­cials.

Reached for com­ment yes­ter­day via tele­phone and asked whether he was in sup­port of an SoE held Olympic Games, Lewis said, “Yes I am in full sup­port of the IOC’s po­si­tion.

He added, “I know that they are be­ing guid­ed by Pub­lic Health ex­perts and the sci­en­tist from the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) and that Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment and The Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment are al­so be­ing guid­ed by sci­ence and sci­en­tist ex­perts epi­demi­ol­o­gist and vi­rol­o­gist.

“So that they have in­di­cat­ed and we trust the as­ser­tions be­ing made by the Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment and the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment and the IOC in re­spect of the WHO in­di­cat­ing that the counter-mea­sures, the test­ing and trac­ing that will be in place for the games as well as the iso­la­tion and strict re­stric­tions.

With re­gards to hav­ing so many teams and ath­letes in one re­gion, Lewis said the fact that it’s a bio-se­cure en­vi­ron­ment and that the safe­ty of the Team TTO del­e­ga­tion and all the del­e­ga­tions and teams com­ing to the Tokyo 2020 are a pri­or­i­ty and para­mount to the or­gan­is­ers he is con­fi­dent in the Games com­ing off with­out any ma­jor hic­cups.

“Each team must do their part, so the T&TOC we will be do­ing our ut­most to com­ply and pre­pare our ath­letes, of­fi­cials and the TTOC Op­er­a­tion Staff led by Chef de mis­sion, Lovey San­tana, and our med­ical team com­pris­ing the Dr Rudy Ram­sarath and Dr Naila Adams that we are ready and that we are pre­pared in all as­pects men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly for what is go­ing to be a very dif­fer­ent and unique Olympic Games that there is no choice in terms of it be­ing very re­stric­tive and bio-se­cure be­cause of the un­prece­dent­ed covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

"And I be­lieve that it is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant that the Olympic Games be held giv­en the re­al­i­ties that covid-19 is not go­ing to go­ing away any time soon and that it is im­por­tant to vac­ci­nate our way out of this war with covid-19 and it is al­so set­ting a tem­plate for the Olympic Games and the mul­ti-sport Games in the post-covid-19 world.

With an eye on fea­ture ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al events, Lewis said he thinks the up­com­ing Games can set the tone.

“I be­lieve that the mea­sures that the IOC and the Japan Gov­ern­ment and the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment are putting in place for Tokyo 2020 is the new nor­mal and the new tem­plate for the Olympic Games, end­ed Lewis.