Olympics
THE TOKYO GAMES ARE CURSED AND THAT’S A FACT, SAYS JAPAN’S DEPUTY PM ASO
Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister has said that the Tokyo Olympics are “cursed”, as speculation mounts that the Games will have to be postponed owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
Taro Aso, who has a history of making gaffes and blunders, told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday (March 18) that the Olympics appeared to be blighted by world events every 40 years.
Japan had planned to host the summer and winter Olympics in 1940, but World War II forced the cancellation of both Games.
Forty years later, many countries, including the United States, China and Japan, boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest at the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
“It’s a problem that’s happened every 40 years – it’s the cursed Olympics, and that’s a fact,” the 79-year-old said.
As Japanese officials and International Olympic Committee again insisted that the Games would go ahead as planned, it emerged that the Tokyo 2020 organising committee’s chief, Yoshiro Mori, had recently attended a meeting with a senior sports official who had since tested positive for the virus.
Mori, a former prime minister, was at the same March 10 meeting, held to discuss last year’s Rugby World Cup, as the deputy head of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Kozo Tashima, who tested positive on Tuesday.
Mori, who is 82 and has lung cancer, has not shown symptoms and does not meet the requirements for a test, an official from his office told Reuters.
About 60 people attended the meeting, with Mori seated about 10m away from Tashima on the opposite side of the table, according to Jun Kusumoto, a spokesman for the Rugby World Cup organising committee.
The health authorities have contacted other attendees who are thought to be at risk. “(Mori) goes to hospital three times a week for dialysis, so if he develops a fever or has other symptoms, a doctor will be able to test for it,” the official from his office said.
The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters that the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, met Mori on Monday, but did not directly address a question about whether Abe would be tested.
Aso, who doubles as Finance Minister, said holding the Games this summer would “not make sense” if other countries were unable to send their athletes.
“As the prime minister said, it’s desirable to hold the Olympics in an environment where everyone feels safe and happy. But that’s not something Japan alone can decide.”
The Tokyo 2020 organisers said a little-known Japanese swimmer who competed in the 1996 Atlanta Games would receive the Olympic torch during a scaled-back handover ceremony in Athens later on Thursday.
Naoko Imoto, who works in Greece for Unicef, had been approached by the organisers after virus-related travel restrictions prevented a Japanese delegation from flying to Athens to receive the symbolic flame, which is due to arrive in Japan on Friday.
“We decided yesterday that we felt it was necessary for a Japanese person to undertake this role,” the organising committee’s chief executive, Toshiro Muto, told reporters.
Imoto, 43, was a member of Japan’s 4x200m freestyle relay team who were fourth in the 1996 Olympics.
Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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