TOKYO (AFP) – More than 75 percent of Japanese oppose overseas fans attending the Tokyo Olympics, a poll showed Monday, as organisers prepare to make a decision on foreign spectators.
The poll, by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily, found that only 18 percent of people who responded were in favour of foreign spectators being allowed into Japan for the coronavirus-delayed Games, with 77 percent against.
Games organisers said last week that they plan to rule on the matter this month, likely before the nationwide torch relay begins on March 25.
But Japanese media say Games chiefs have already decided to bar foreign fans.
Tokyo 2020 president Seiko Hashimoto said Friday that organisers ”really want to hold the event in full stadiums with fans from around the world”, but would find it difficult ”if we’re not in a position where we can accept them and the situation with medical facilities isn’t perfect”.
The Yomiuri poll also revealed that 45 percent of respondents were in favour of spectators in general attending the Games, with 48 percent opposed.
Organisers have said they plan to make a decision on overall attendance limits in April.
The poll was conducted between March 5-7 through random phone calls, with 1,066 of the 1,977 people contacted responding.
IOC to reinstall Bach
as Olympic chief
LAUSANNE (AFP) – Thomas Bach will be re-elected unopposed for a second term as Olympic chief this week, just five months before the opening ceremony of the coronavirus-delayed Tokyo Games and less than a year from the increasingly scrutinised 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
The 67-year-old German’s second mandate as president of the International Olympic Committee promises to be as eventful, or turbulent, as his first.
The most pressing agenda item at the start of his new four-year term, after an opening eight years that saw him deal with, among other things, the problem-laden 2014 Sochi and 2016 Rio Games, state-sponsored Russian doping and the deadly wave of coronavirus, is the Tokyo Olympics.
The IOC took the decision to postpone the 2020 Games for a year to July 23-August 8 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
