UK athletes will not jump queue for vaccine says BOA chief
THE British Olympic Association has stressed there is no question of jumping the queue when it comes to securing vaccinations for athletes preparing for this summer’s delayed Tokyo Games.
Long-serving Canadian IOC member Dick Pound has suggested Olympic-bound athletes might be moved up the priority list in order to guarantee their ability to compete in the Japanese capital.
However, the BOA is not currently in active conversations with the government with regard to the issue of vaccinations for athletes.
BOA chief executive Andy Anson said: “The priority has to be the people who need it most - frontline workers, the elderly and the vulnerable.
“There will come a time, hopefully ahead of the Olympic Games when the athletes can be considered for vaccination, but we’ll only do that when it’s appropriate.”
Pound had proposed that there would not necessarily be a ‘public outcry’ if athletes were fast-forwarded towards a vaccine, even if it came at the expense of some at-risk groups.
Pound said: “In Canada where we might have 300 or 400 athletes - to take 300 or 400 vaccines out of several million in order to have Canada represented at an international event of this stature, character and level - I don’t think there would be any kind of a public outcry about that.
“It’s a decision for each country to make and there will be people saying they are jumping the queue but I think that is the most realistic way of it going ahead.”