KEI­TH CLEMENT

LEAD ED­I­TOR- SPORTS

Fol­low­ing me­dia re­ports dur­ing this week with spec­u­la­tion that the Tokyo Olympic would be can­celled with the con­tin­ued threat of the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic and the lat­est news of a new strain by doc­tors, pres­i­dent Thomas Bach of the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and lo­cal or­gan­is­ers are push­ing back against those re­ports.

Now set to open Ju­ly 23 af­ter it was post­poned from last Ju­ly, at the out­break of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and now the event ap­pears threat­ened again.

It was re­port­ed re­cent­ly in the Times of Lon­don, cit­ing uniden­ti­fied gov­ern­ment sources, that the Games will have to be can­celled. It quot­ed an uniden­ti­fied se­nior mem­ber of the rul­ing gov­ern­ment coali­tion.

“No one wants to be the first to say so, but the con­sen­sus is that it’s too dif­fi­cult,” the per­son said. “Per­son­al­ly, I don’t think it’s go­ing to hap­pen.”

How­ev­er, in a state­ment on Fri­day, the lo­cal or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee did not ad­dress di­rect­ly The Times sto­ry but said the Olympics were go­ing for­ward and had the sup­port of Prime Min­is­ter Yoshi­hide Suga.

“All our de­liv­ery part­ners in­clud­ing the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment, the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment, Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee, the IOC, and the IPC (In­ter­na­tion­al Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee) are ful­ly fo­cused on host­ing the games this sum­mer,” the state­ment said.

Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), said in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the spec­u­la­tion that: "T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee is con­fi­dent that the IOC and Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee are do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to en­sure a safe and se­cure Olympic Games. The TTOC and Team TTO ath­letes re­main com­mit­ted to prepar­ing and qual­i­fy­ing for Tokyo 2020."

He added that: "The TTOC ap­pre­ci­ates that it is an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly dif­fi­cult time in the his­to­ry of the Olympic Games and will sup­port the IOC with the nec­es­sary and dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions that will have to be made to en­sure a safe and se­cure Games. It may very well be that Tokyo 2020 will have to be a closed-door Games."

"The TTOC will sup­port and se­lect a Team TTO team to at­tend the Games in the com­ing weeks. The IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee will pro­vide Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees with spe­cif­ic de­tails in re­spect of the coun­ter­mea­sures that will be put in place to fa­cil­i­tate a safe and se­cure Games."

With re­gards to the news that the IOC is work­ing with the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) to get all ath­letes vac­ci­nat­ed in a bid to save the Tokyo Games, and that the fast-track­ing the COVID-19 vac­cines to com­peti­tors where na­tion­al pro­grammes, Lewis said: "The TTOC will work close­ly with the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and oth­er Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Health au­thor­i­ties on the ques­tion of vac­ci­na­tion should it be­come a re­quire­ment for the T&T Olympic team."

Lewis con­tin­ued: "The TTOC ap­pre­ci­ates that it is an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly dif­fi­cult time in the his­to­ry of the Olympic Games and will sup­port the IOC in its nec­es­sary and dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions that will have to be made to en­sure a safe and se­cure Games."

Lewis, who will be lead­ing a team of walk­ers and run­ners Sun­day in a fundrais­ing project to as­sist lo­cal ath­letes in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon vir­tu­al event added: "In the com­ing weeks, the IOC and the Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee will pro­vide Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees with spe­cif­ic de­tails in re­spect of the coun­ter­mea­sures that will be put in place to fa­cil­i­tate a safe and se­cure Games."