Top Olympic official confident Summer Games will go ahead despite virus outbreak

NEWS 14.02.202010:20
AFP

A top Olympic official told reporters in Tokyo on Friday that the Summer Games remain “on track” despite the outbreak of novel coronavirus.

Advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that “there’s no case for any contingency plans of cancelling the Games or moving the Games,” said John Coates, chairman of the Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo.

Asked by CNN’s Matt Rivers if he had 100% confidence that things would move forward smoothly and the Games would go ahead, Coates said, “yes I do.”

“We continue to monitor particularly the Chinese that will be coming here,” Coates said, adding that “the Chinese team are mostly out of China now – the athletes and officials” for training and qualifying events.

“If they are planning to come, I don’t see a problem with them coming from another country other than China.”

He said that any Chinese athletes or fans coming from China, particularly affected provinces, would have to adhere to any Japanese government protocols.

Meetings over the past two days in Tokyo “reinforced our confidence” that the Japanese government is properly addressing the virus, he said. “We’re going to be very reliant on the communications coming from the organizing committee, but also the national government.”

Yoshiro Mori, president of Tokyo 2020, said that the Japanese government had set up a headquarters to take “full and thorough measures” to address the outbreak, and “meetings have already been held and we are working to share information.”