TOKYO: The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee on Friday declared that it will be seeking help from a Japanese weather company in the private sector and the union government’s meteorological agency for climate data analysis at all Olympic venues, AFP reports.
The organisers are set to create a centre specifically to monitor extreme weather, as Tokyo is notorious for its scorching summer which has the potential to could cause heatstrokes or even deaths during the marquee sporting event. The centre will send warnings about weather-related emergencies, including evacuation information too if necessary.
Fears are growing as Tokyo 2020 will coincide with Japan’s typhoon season and the country’s history of inviting natural disasters is well known. A record amount of rainfall in West Japan killed more than 200 people last year.
In December 2018, Tokyo 2020 officials had mentioned that the marathon event in particular will begin ‘between 5:30 am and 6 am’ from its previous 7 am timing. Japan had previously hosted the Olympics in October 1964 to avoid hot summer conditions.
IOC Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi believes that the Tokyo 2020 organisers’ plans in terms of developing heat countermeasures has been ‘stunning’.
“I feel that only in Japan would you go to that kind of detail,” Dubi told AFP, citing preparations for providing shade and water for athletes and spectators.
“If 2020 takes place in the same conditions that prevailed last summer in Tokyo, the Organising Committee is really, really ready to counter the situation,” he signed off.
