TOKYO (Reuters) – International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach is set to meet with organisers of the Tokyo Olympics on Monday as part of a two-day visit to Japan to demonstrate his commitment to holding the Games, despite the global pandemic.
The visit will be Bach’s first to the Japanese capital since he and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in March decided to postpone the Games to 2021 because of the novel coronavirus.
On Monday Bach is scheduled to meet with Japan’s new premier Yoshihide Suga and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike.
The key areas Bach will want to discuss with organisers during his visit are whether spectators will be allowed in to venues, and how best to safely accommodate over 11,000 athletes arriving in Tokyo from across the world.
Bach’s visit comes a week after Tokyo successfully hosted a one-off international gymnastics meet where organisers tested a variety of COVID-19 counter-measures. [L8N2HW0I1]
News of a potentially successful vaccine from Pfizer Inc has boosted hopes for the staging of the Games next year, but public opinion in Japan remains mixed. Nearly 70 percent of respondents in a July NHK poll said they thought the Games should be further postponed or canceled.
(Reporting by Mari Saito; editing by Richard Pullin)
