With just 49 days to go for Tokyo Olympics 2020, IOA writes to Delhi CM to allow functioning of office

NEW DELHI: Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Friday wrote to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to allow the functioning of the IOA office from Monday in order to upload the mandatory required data of the Indian contingent for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

The national capital has been under lockdown since April 19 in view of the massive surge in Covid-19 cases in the second wave of the pandemic. The city's healthcare infrastructure and crematoriums were hugely overburdened.

The situation has, however, improved significantly and IOA wants to complete a lot of process of filling the online data of approximately 240 athletes and officials going to Tokyo for the Games.

"The Indian Contingent for Tokyo Olympics has to go to Tokyo in July 2021. A lot of exhaustive data is to be filled online for approx 240 Athletes and officials going to Tokyo," IOA president Narinder Dhruv Batra and Secretary General Rajeev Mehta said in a letter.

"This work requires tremendous amount of time and we now are running out of time due to lockdown and will make it difficult to complete uploading the data by working from home.

"We request and appeal to You Sir to allow the office of Indian Olympic Association to function from Monday 7th June 2021 to enable IOA to upload the mandatory required data," the letter further read.

Tokyo Olympics will begin on July 23 and the Games will run up to August 8 this year. The event was slated to be held last year, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.