THE INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee’s point man for the Tokyo Games has insisted there’s no deadline to call off the event and that it was still going ahead as planned.
John Coates, chairman of the Tokyo coordination commission, was speaking before his return from Switzerland to Australia, where he is facing a mandatory two-week quarantine.
The Lausanne-based IOC is set for emergency talks Tuesday as doubts grow over whether it remains feasible to hold the Games during the coronavirus emergency, with world sport largely grinding to a halt.
Senior IOC member Dick Pound suggested last month that a final call would be made by late May.
But Coates, who is also president of the Australian Olympic committee, disputed the timeline.
“The IOC didn’t recognise any dates that Dick came up with and I think Dick backed off that as well,” he told Tuesday’s Sydney Morning Herald.
“It’s all proceeding to start on the 24th of July.
“It’s never been the IOC’s position. It was Dick’s idea,” he added of the apparent deadline. “There is four months to go.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach have repeatedly insisted preparations should continue as scheduled even as the virus scare intensifies.
The IOC’s executive board is due to meet via conference call to prepare an “information exchange” ahead of a series of talks with athletes’ representatives, National Olympic Committees and International Federations.
