Japan’s Suga, IOC’s Bach Seek to Overcome Stumble for Olympics

(Bloomberg) -- Olympic boss Thomas Bach and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will try to build momentum for an Olympics facing unprecedented challenges after a series of gaffes further tarnished the games starting in nine days.

Bach heads into a Wednesday meeting with Suga at around 3:20 p.m. after making an embarrassing flub a day earlier when he met organizers in Tokyo, and referred to locals as “Chinese people.” He quickly corrected his mistake but it caught international attention.

The Tokyo Games start July 23 and due to the Covid-19 pandemic will be the first held without spectators since the modern Olympic movement started in the late 19th century. The stakes are enormous for Suga whose political fortunes are closely tied to a successful games and for the International Olympic Committee, which faces scrutiny on whether it may be putting the money that comes with the global sports spectacle ahead of public health.

Suga has pledged to hold a safe and secure Olympics but polls show a large part of the public wants the games to be called off or delayed on fears it could become a superspreader event in a country that lags behind its Group of Seven peers in vaccinations.

Local organizers, Suga’s government and the IOC have put in place a slew of measures to test for the coronavirus and prevent any infections from spreading.

“Our common target is safe and secure games for everybody,” Bach said Tuesday. “For the athletes, for all the delegations, and most importantly also for the Chinese people … Japanese people.”

The same day that Bach tripped over his words, four electricians from the U.S. and the U.K. who were in Japan for work related to the Olympics were arrested over allegations of using cocaine, public broadcaster NHK said. Olympics Minister Tamayo Marukawa said if the allegations proved to be true, it could damage the image of the games, Kyodo News reported.

Bach spent three days in quarantine at a Tokyo hotel after arriving last week. He is set to visit Sapporo and Fukushima, which will host events, as well as Hiroshima on Friday to show the IOC’s commitment to peace, Kyodo said, adding a local civic group is demanding he call off the visit it sees as politically motivated and dishonoring the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing.

There are no spectators allowed at events in Tokyo, where a spike in infections prompted Suga to reimpose a state of emergency for the capital from Monday that will last throughout the games.

Even though almost all Olympic events in the Tokyo region will be spectator-free, pro sports in Japan including baseball, soccer and sumo have been in action in front of fans -- albeit with restrictions on numbers, mandatory mask wearing and instructions not to vocally cheer. Several warm-up matches for the Olympics have also been held in various parts of the country with similar restrictions for fans.

As the games draw near, the Olympic Village in Tokyo opened its doors to athletes this week and the White House on Tuesday said First Lady Jill Biden would travel to Tokyo for the opening ceremony, pressing ahead with a trip amid a virus surge in the city.

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