TOKYO — There is no “Plan B” for the Olympics in the event that they should be delayed again due to the coronavirus pandemic, Tokyo coordinators said Tuesday.
Masa Takaya, the representative for the Tokyo Olympics, said coordinators are continuing under the supposition the Olympics will open on July 23, 2021. The Paralympics follow on Aug. 24.
Those dates were set a month ago by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese authorities after the coronavirus pandemic made it understood the Tokyo Games couldn’t be held as planned for this present year.
“We are progressing in the direction of the new objective,” Takaya stated, talking in English on a video chat call with writers. “We don’t have a B Plan.”
The seriousness of the pandemic and the loss of life has brought up issues on the off chance that it will even be possible to hold the Olympics in a little more than 15 months.
“Everything I can disclose to you today is that the new games’ dates for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been recently set up,” Takaya said. “In that regard, Tokyo 2020 and every concerned gathering presently are doing their absolute best exertion to convey the games one year from now.”
IOC President Thomas Bach was gotten some information about the chance of a deferment in a meeting distributed in the German paper Die Welt on Sunday.
He didn’t address the inquiry straightforwardly, yet said later that Japanese coordinators and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed they “couldn’t deal with a deferment past the following summer at the most recent.”
The Olympics draw 11,000 competitors and 4,400 Paralympic competitors and huge help staffs from 206 national Olympic boards of trustees.
There are likewise inquiries regarding solidified travel, rebooking inns, packing fans into arenas and fields, making sure about scenes and the monstrous expenses of rescheduling, which is assessed in Japan at $2 billion-$6 billion.
Tokyo sorting out board of trustees CEO Toshiro Muto tended to the issue in a news gathering on Friday. He is probably going to be gotten some information about it again on Thursday when neighborhood coordinators and the IOC hold a video chat with media in Japan.
The other significant inquiry is the expense of the postponement, and who pays.
Bach said in the Sunday meet that the IOC would cause “a few hundred million dollars” in included expenses. Under the purported Host City Agreement, Japan is at risk for most by far of the costs.
“This is difficult to state until further notice,” Takaya said. “It isn’t anything but difficult to assess the specific measure of the games’ extra costs, which have been affected by the deferment.”
Tokyo says it is burning through $12.6 billion to compose the Olympics. However, a Japanese government review distributed a year ago says the expenses are twice that much. Of the all out burning through, $5.6 billion is private cash. The rest is from Japanese governments.
