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Tokyo, the organizing committee if the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has also named MikakoKotani as its new director of sports. She takes the position on the coming Thursday. Kotani has won two bronze medals in the synchronized swimming which is now known as artistic swimming at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. She replaces Koji Murofushi who is now becoming the commissioner of Japan’s Sports Agency, a position in the Japanese Government.
The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee is actually headed by 83-year-old Yoshiro Mori, a former minister of Japan. Kotani is also a member of the executive board of the Olympic Committee of Japan and one of the few women in a sports leadership position in Japan.
The cabinet of new Prime Minister YoshihideSuga only has two women among its 20 members. The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed because of the COVID – 19 pandemic until next year. The organizers are adamant that it will take place but have provided a few details about exactly how it will happen.
Kotan succeeds in Koji Murofushi, who was named the commissioner of the Japan Sports Agency this month and who is also an executive board member on the Japanese Olympic Committee as part of the bidding team for hosting the 2020 games of Tokyo.
On this, Kotani said in a statement that, “As a sports director, I am really very humbled and honored to be able to support the Paralympic and Olympic games from a sporting perspective and from the Olympian perspective. We definitely will work hard to overcome this exceptional challenge the world is facing, and help athletes conduct to their best in a new kind of games.”
The games, basically scheduled to start this summer, were now postponed for a year by the International Olympic Committee and the government of Japan because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Japan remains committed to hosting the Games next year with the organizers who purpose to cut back the number of staff as well as shorten the opening period for the training venues as a part of a plan for holding a streamlined event.
A day before, Japan’s Game minister, Seiko Hashimoto has said that the Tokyo Olympics must be helped “at any cost”. And he said as organizers continue to weight up options for staging a “Post-pandemic” celebration of sport in the city next summer.
Hashimoto told reporters on Tuesday that, everyone involved with the Games is working together to prepare and the athletes are also making considerable efforts towards next year.
The former Olympian suggested the priority had now shifted from planning for the “Complete Games” when favored by the Outgoing Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe towards an event that would enable the athletes to enter regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic status.
She said, “I think we have to hold the Games at any cost, I want to concentrate all of our efforts on measure against the coronavirus”. There is also a growing belief within national Olympic committees that the Games will go ahead following the lengthy discussion over the summer about how they can be staged safely and securely. The Guardian actually understands which proposals under discussion consist of:
- Possibly keeping athletes in the preparation camps for longer before they move to the Olympic village, enabling them to be tested constantly for COVID-19 and cleared before competing
- Asking athletes to leave the athletes’ village quickly after they have competed, rather than stay unless after the ending ceremony as is traditional
- Having reduced abilities in stadiums observing social distancing rules
Well, suggestions that there could be a downsized Olympics, with the less staff and athletes, are being downplayed by senior sources
With the warning of an expert that a vaccine is unlikely to be extensively available by constantly opening ceremony is because of taking place on 23 July 2021, a task force of organizers, national as well as local government officials, and health experts met for the first time last week to consider antivirus procedures.
The group, that is exposed to release an interim report at the end of the year, is sifting via more than 200 proposals on how best to prevent an Olympic-related outbreak while enabling across 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries for traveling to Japan.
The deputy chief cabinet secretary, Kazuhiro Sugita, said at the meeting, “we need to make sure that athletes can conduct at their best and audiences enjoy the Games safely while living with this pandemic”. “To achieve that, we’’ adjust border controls, medical systems, and testing and the venue’s operations.
Tokyo chief executive, last week, Toshiro Muto, insisted the Games could be held even if a vaccine wasn’t available. It is not a prerequisite, “he said. “It is not a condition for the delivery of the Tokyo 2020 Games. A vaccine isn’t a requirement and if vaccines are developed, we will really appreciate it, and for Tokyo 2020 that would be great.”
While the delayed start of domestic and international sports competitions shows it is possible to lessen the risks to athletes, it will be harder to ensure the safety of huge numbers of spectators from overseas.
Muto said, “As far as spectators, we don’t have any conditions, but we would like to avoid no spectators.”
Organizers said that they had been encouraged to see international sports events such as the US Open tennis and the Tour de France go ahead in the pandemic midst and by reports that Japan’s government us considering and allow the more fans into the stadium to watch domestic baseball and football matches.
