After the Times of Great Britain surprised with the publication that, according to official sources, the government of Japan had decided to cancel the Tokyo Olympic Games, multiple voices, including those of the country itself and those of the International Olympic Committee, rejected and denied that information. And now a strong and Argentine voice went further. Gerardo Werthein, president of the Argentine Olympic Committee and a strong man in the IOC, assured that if necessary, the latter entity will “finance vaccines” in those countries that need it.
The head of the COA – an entity that will leave this year – remarked that “in the position of the IOC it is not in question whether or not the Games are held. What is being discussed is how they are going to be done because undoubtedly we have a pandemic and we must be responsible”.
In dialogue with Télam, Werthein affirmed in this regard that one of the measures to “take care of the integrity of the athletes and the delegations” will be that “the athletes, if they can and have the will, are all vaccinated.”
To do this, who also joined the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee last year explained: “From the IOC we are going to finance the surplus vaccines that are needed in the countries, understanding that each State is the enforcement authority. But if there were not enough Vaccines, we are going to guarantee them in those countries that are more committed to accessing them so that athletes, if they want to do so, can be vaccinated together with the entire Olympic community. If we achieve that, the risk falls violently “.
Beyond the possibility of application, Werthein made it clear that they are “convinced that it will not be an indispensable requirement but a voluntary decision of the athletes”, while arguing that “no one will be excluded for not getting vaccinated, unless the Japanese authorities do not allow anyone to enter without a vaccine, “but in any case, he dismissed that the latter is a reliable possibility.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, in a parliamentary session that had the Olympic Games as its axis. Photo EFE
The businessman also detailed other measures that would be implemented in conjunction with the possibility of extending vaccination.
“Today there is a testing system, similar to the PCR in terms of efficiency, that give their results in 15 minutes, with which one can test all the delegations on a daily basis – he emphasized -. Due to the time difference, the delegations will arrive first to the country and they will be installed in some of the prefectures of Japan, within a high-performance center, and they will be tested daily. From there they will move with dedicated means of transport, they will not have contact with the mass means of transportation, until they enter the Villa, all tested, so that the Villa can be a sterile place. “
Regarding another of the issues that is raising dust and about which there are many doubts and few certainties, such as public attendance at the Games, Werthein was hopeful that the stadiums can receive people.
“So far in Japan, football, rugby and different sports competitions are being developed and they have won a significant number of the public, respecting some measures of the ministries of health,” he argued.
And he added: “I think it is aiming to have a level of public, but today it is difficult to know how much. What we are discussing is how much public there will be, what will be the capacity of the public in the closed competition venues and in the Open places. How they are going to be done will depend on the number of people, how much, where. If people from abroad or only Japanese are going to be accepted, we are defining all these things. “
And he concluded that “much will depend on what the organizing city resolves.”
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