TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Olympic Committee board member Kaori Yamaguchi said in an opinion piece published on Friday that the Summer Games, set to begin next month as Japan battles a fourth COVID-19 wave, had already lost meaning but that it was too late to cancel.
In the article carried by Japan’s Kyodo news agency, Yamaguchi also said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) appeared to think that public opinion in Japan was not important, and that organisers, the IOC and the Japanese government seemed to be avoiding dialogue despite Japanese citizens’ concerns about the risk of the Games.
Opinion polls consistently show a big majority of Japanese want the Games cancelled or postponed again as the country battles a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
