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Sunday, February 23, 2025

T&TOC cancels Tokyo pre-game Olympic camp

by

Walter Alibey
1351 days ago
20210613
T&TOC president Brian Lewis

T&TOC president Brian Lewis

T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis has sought to dou­ble and triple his com­mit­tee's safe­ty mea­sures for Team T&T, which are al­ready in line with those put in place by the Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee, the Japan Gov­ern­ment and the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC).

Lewis at a vir­tu­al news press con­fer­ence meet­ing on Sat­ur­day said he has ex­treme con­fi­dence in the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic safe­ty pro­ce­dures im­ple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment and the Tokyo 2020 Com­mit­tee and has agreed to can­cel a planned pre-game camp in Os­a­ki, a small town to the out­skirts of Tokyo Olympics vil­lage with a pop­u­la­tion of about 10, 000 peo­ple.

Lewis, sup­port­ed by chef de mis­sion Lovie San­tana said a vir­tu­al show­ing of the TTO's pre-game ac­tiv­i­ties has been pro­posed for the schools in that area, the chil­dren and the youth of Os­a­ki town, and it has been ac­cept­ed by all.

The camp was can­celled af­ter se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment there, Lewis ex­plained: "Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the Japan Em­bassy, the Am­bas­sador to T&T, the town of Os­a­ki and the TTOC, charged with the game-re­lat­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. What would have hap­pened is that on the 21st of May, we would have had a meet­ing of the three en­ti­ties and there was a re-com­mit­ment by Os­a­ki town to con­tin­ue to stage the pre-game train­ing camp. At the meet­ing, they were very frank and open with con­ver­sa­tions where safe­ty and the biose­cure en­vi­ron­ment was of para­mount, and an ab­solute pri­or­i­ty.

The Os­a­ki au­thor­i­ties would have re­viewed and re-ex­am­ined the sit­u­a­tion in light of the in­creased COVID-19 risks in Kagoshi­ma Pre­fec­ture, the fact that the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple would have been in­ter­fac­ing with the TTO del­e­ga­tion, would not have been vac­ci­nat­ed be­cause of the pol­i­cy in Japan. The fact that there was not a ded­i­cat­ed med­ical fa­cil­i­ty in Os­a­ki Town, and the ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial re­quire­ments to put in place es­sen­tial­ly, what would have been the same type of COVID-19 counter-mea­sures that would be ap­plied in Tokyo."

The Os­a­ki of­fi­cials re­vealed that in the in­ter­est of the ab­solute safe­ty of the TTO team and the peo­ple of Os­a­ki Town that the camp be can­celled.

Lewis and the TTOC al­so ex­plained that a de­ci­sion was tak­en for the TTOC to re­pur­pose its fo­cus on en­hanced COVID-19 coun­ter­mea­sures that will com­ple­ment the very strict and re­stric­tive coun­ter­mea­sures be­ing put in place by the Japan/Tokyo 2020 Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment, and the Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan gov­ern­ment as well as the IOC.

Ac­cord­ing to Lewis, they are very con­fi­dent in the strict mea­sures that have been put in place al­ready, such as two PCR tests with­in three days of de­par­ture, dai­ly sali­va tests, ap­pli­ca­tions that would mon­i­tor move­ment, re­stric­tion from pub­lic trans­port, and en­gag­ing with any­one out­side of the bub­ble, not­ing that breach­es in these re­stric­tions can re­sult in your ac­cred­i­ta­tion be­ing with­drawn and you can be sent home.

The TTOC in its plan to en­sure the safe­ty of the Japan­ese peo­ple and his del­e­ga­tion said they al­so have a plan to en­sure that 100 per­cent of the del­e­ga­tion is vac­ci­nat­ed, say­ing: "While there are those who may have a con­cern with that, it is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty, giv­en the ac­tu­al sit­u­a­tion here in T&T."

The TTOC will al­so en­sure that 14 days be­fore the T&T-based del­e­ga­tion trav­els, that PCR tests will be done, which will be in ad­di­tion, to the two PCR tests that will be ad­min­is­tered with­in 96 hours of their trav­el arrange­ments.

There will al­so be strict mon­i­tor­ing of ath­letes and of­fi­cials, with an el­e­ment of self-iso­la­tion to be en­forced.

Al­so, the TTOC will be mak­ing arrange­ments when the team is on its way back home, for a 14-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od to as­sure the peo­ple of T&T that they are not bring­ing back home any vari­ant, as well as oth­er con­tin­gency plans if they en­counter a de­lay in flights arrange­ments.


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