Japan: Summer Olympics 'Up to the U.S.'

Tokyo’s hosting of the next Olympic Games this summer is “up to the U.S.,” a Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee member said on Wednesday.

U.S. President Joe Biden is “dealing with a tough situation with the coronavirus,” Takahashi Haruyuki, a member of the executive board of Japan’s Olympic organizing committee, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an article published January 27.

“But if he makes a positive statement about the Olympics going ahead, we’d gain strong momentum,” Takahashi said.

“It’s up to the U.S. I hate to say it, but [International Olympic Committee (IOC) President] Thomas Bach and the IOC are not the ones who are able to make the decision about the Games,” he added. “They don’t have that level of leadership.”

The IOC responded to Takahashi’s remarks in a statement to the WSJ, saying “his comments are obsolete.”

“It is regrettable that Mr. Takahashi does not know the facts,” the IOC’s statement read.

The committee that led Tokyo’s bid to secure the 2020 Olympic Games paid Takahashi, a former advertising executive, $8.2 million to spearhead the campaign. The payments made Takahashi “the single largest recipient of money from the Tokyo bid committee, which was mostly funded by Japanese companies,” according to Reuters. After securing the games, the Tokyo committee named Takahashi to its board.

The Tokyo games – currently scheduled to start on July 23, 2021 – were postponed last year from their original summer 2020 start date due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Kyodo News published a poll on January 10 revealing that 80 percent of the Japanese public was in favor of canceling or postponing Tokyo’s 2021 summer games due to difficulties posed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo on January 7 entered a month-long state of emergency to curb the spread of coronavirus in the national capital area amid a spike in the number of daily new cases.

The U.S. contributes the largest pool of athletes and television advertising money to the Olympic Games. Observers believe that a U.S. endorsement of Tokyo pushing forward to host the next summer games “would be influential with a skeptical Japanese public and reassure other countries that aren’t sure about sending athletes to Tokyo,” according to the WSJ.

British newspaper the Times published a report on January 21 alleging that the Japanese government had “privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be canceled” because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Citing an unidentified senior member of Japan’s ruling party, the Times said that Tokyo was now focusing on securing the Olympic Games for the next available year, 2032.

Both the Japanese government and Japan’s Olympic Committee dismissed the Times report as false shortly after it was published.

“We clearly deny the report,” Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Manabu Sakai said at a news conference.

Japan Olympic Committee head Yasuhiro Yamashita described the Times report as “a fabrication” in a statement to Reuters.

“International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach held phone calls on Friday [January 22] with national Olympic committees around the world to reassure them about the Games and discuss coronavirus vaccinations for athletes. He has said there is no alternative plan for the Tokyo Olympics,” the WSJ reported on January 27.