Tokyo 'will have' Olympics next year
IOC V-P expresses his belief that streamlined Games will become 'new norm' for later hosts
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku is lit up in Olympic colours a year to the day the postponed Games are slated to open next July. Australia's Olympic Committee president maintains a "gut feeling" that the Olympics will go ahead.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SYDNEY • The Olympic movement faces its biggest challenge for four decades in getting a streamlined Summer Games up and running next year but influential official John Coates believes they will take place.
He heads the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Coordination Commission for the Tokyo Games, which were postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 70-year-old Australian concedes that there is uncertainty because of the continuing spread of the virus but thinks it is important the Games go ahead next year.
"We owe it to the athletes to make sure this happens and a generation of athletes don't miss the opportunity of the Games," the IOC vice-president said yesterday.
"I'm putting a lot of work into it and my gut feeling is yes, we will (have the Olympics next year)."
While there will be changes to reduce the cost of the event, and others to ensure the health of athletes, Coates said the desire was still very much to have spectators in the stadiums.
"The crowd is an important part of it and it is very much in our planning to maintain that," he added.
To offset the increase in costs caused by the postponement of the Games that were already slated to run up an official bill of US$12.35 billion (S$17 billion), the IOC and the organisers have come up with more than 200 measures to simplify the Olympics.
One change that was already agreed, he added, was to scrap a glitzy opening ceremony for the IOC meeting that traditionally precedes the Games.
"That will now be three speeches at the start of the session," said Coates. "And that might save you half a million dollars."
He said the simplification of the Games was very much in line with IOC president Thomas Bach's "Agenda 2020", which aims to make hosting the Games cheaper after the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics ran up a US$60 billion bill.
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THE NUMBERS GAME
S$17b
Official costs associated with hosting the Tokyo Olympics.
500k
Estimated savings in US dollars (S$688,000) if the IOC meeting's opening ceremony is scrapped.
>200
Measures devised by organisers to simplify the Games.
Some of the adjustments for Tokyo might therefore become the "new norm" for hosting the Olympics, Coates said. He added that since the postponement, there has been no change in the relationship between the IOC and their Tokyo partners, from Yoshiro Mori, the former Japanese prime minister who heads the organising committee, all the way down.
Coates noted: "They've maintained their motivation. I'm very, very impressed. This is a challenge they didn't anticipate and they're just getting on with it."
He added the IOC was facing its biggest challenge since 1980, when the United States led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
While not wanting to underplay the problems, he thought his close ally Bach's commitment to overhauling the status quo would make it easier for the Olympic movement to ride out the crisis.
"In terms of the challenges I think we're in a better position because when Bach came in, his mantra was 'change or be changed'," he said.
REUTERS
