Covid surge forces IOC boss to cancel Japan trip

IOC president Thomas Bach has cancelled a trip to Japan because of surging cases of Covid-19 in the country, the Tokyo Olympic organising committee said .

Bach was to visit Hiroshima next week and meet the torch relay and then probably travel to Tokyo.

Organising committee president Seiko Hashimoto said last week that the trip would be ‘‘tough’’ for Bach to make, which was interpreted in Japan as meaning it was cancelled.

The trip was made impossible because of a state of emergency in Tokyo and other parts of the country that has been extended until May 31. The state of emergency was to have ended yesterday.

The statement said Bach’s visit would be made ‘‘as soon a possible’’.

The postponement is an embarrassment to the IOC and local organisers with the Olympics opening in just over 10 weeks. Organisers and the IOC have repeatedly said the Olympics will not be cancelled, and will be ‘‘safe and secure’’.

Japan has attributed 11,000 deaths to Covid-19, better than many countries, but poor for Asia. Variants of the virus are spreading with reports of public health systems coming under pressure.

Public sentiment in Japan continues to run against holding the Olympics during a pandemic. Between 60-80 per cent of Japanese people in polls have said the Olympics should be cancelled or postponed.

An online petition calling for the games to be cancelled gained 300,000 signatures in three days, although a small protest in Tokyo drew only 100 people.

Naomi Osaka, who will represent Japan at the Olympics, said she has mixed feelings.

‘‘Of course I would say I want the Olympics to happen, because I’m an athlete and that’s sort of what I’ve been waiting for my entire life,’’ she said on Sunday at the Italian Open.

‘‘But I think that there’s so much important stuff going on.

‘‘I think a lot of unexpected things have happened and if it’s putting people at risk, and if it’s making people very uncomfortable, then it definitely should be a discussion.’’

Fellow Japanese tennis player Kei Nishikori has doubts about whether the IOC and local organisers are doing enough to plan for a worst-case scenario of ‘‘hundreds’’ or ‘‘thousands’’ of coronavirus cases at the Olympics, or whether it’s even still feasible to hold the games when a state of emergency has been extended in Tokyo and other parts of Japan because of the pandemic.

‘‘I don’t know what they are thinking, and I don’t know how much they are thinking about how they are going to make a bubble, because this is not 100 people like these tournaments,’’ Nishikori said at the Italian Open yesterday.

‘‘It’s 10,000 people in the village. So I don’t think it’s easy, especially what’s happening right now in Japan. It’s not doing good. Well, not even [just] Japan. You have to think all over the world right now.’’

Nishikori and Osaka are among a growing number of tennis players expressing reservations about the Games.