Overseas fans barred from Tokyo Games
TOKYO — Spectators from overseas will not be allowed to attend the Summer Olympics in Japan, organizers said Saturday, making a major concession to the realities of COVID-19 even as they forged ahead with plans to hold the world’s largest sporting event.
The Tokyo Games, which begin in July, were originally scheduled for 2020 but were delayed by a year because of the pandemic. The Tokyo organizing committee has been scrambling to develop safety protocols to protect both participants and local residents from the virus. Concern has been running high in Japan, with big majorities saying in polls that the Games should not be held this summer.
Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo committee, promised at a news conference Saturday that the lack of international spectators would not spoil the Games.
“The Tokyo 2020 Games will be completely different from the past, but the essence remains the same,” Hashimoto said. “Athletes will put everything on the line and inspire people with their outstanding performances.”
The decision to bar spectators from abroad — which the Tokyo organizers made jointly with the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee and the national and local governments in Japan — had been foreshadowed in the Japanese media for weeks.
Thomas Bach, IOC president, has encouraged national organizing committees to secure vaccines for athletes, and he announced this month that China had offered to provide vaccinations for participants who required one before the Games.
But not all local spectators will have the chance to be inoculated before the Olympics open July 23. In Japan, where the vaccine rollout has been relatively slow, the population will not be close to fully vaccinated by the time the Games start.
Officials said Saturday that they would meet again in April to discuss how many spectators would be allowed into Olympic venues.
The organizing committees will now have the enormous headache of arranging refunds for ticket buyers. Overseas buyers purchased 600,000 tickets to Olympic events as well as 30,000 tickets to the Paralympic Games starting in August, organizers said. The Paralympics will also bar spectators from abroad.
In bidding for the Games, the Tokyo organizers said that 7.8 million tickets would be made available. Typically, about 10 percent to 20 percent of Olympic tickets go to international spectators.
Japanese fans could take up some of the slack. Local demand for tickets far outstripped the supply, at least before the pandemic.
The coronavirus has had a comparatively muted effect on Japan, which has had far fewer cases and deaths than the United States. The country has reported just over 8,700 COVID-19 deaths.