July 13, (THEWILL) – A gaffe by the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach, wherein he referred to the people of Japan as “Chinese,” has threatened to derail his recent attempts to win over the reluctant hosts of the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Bach arrived in the Japanese capital last week and has been remotely involved in the plans to keep the XXXLL Olympiad hitch-free and successful. However, he has not been oblivious of the domestic opposition to the insistence of the Japanese government to host the Games against professional medical counsel and rising COVID-19 cases.
The IOC President thought to attempt a reassurance of the residents and the public that the Games would not become a coronavirus super-spreader event with the influx of athletes from all over the world during a pandemic.
At the start of his meeting with the head of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, and its chief executive, Toshiro Muto, Bach had a brief slip of the tongue when he said: “Our common target is safe and secure Games. For everybody –for the athletes, for all the delegations, and most importantly also for the Chinese people … Japanese people.”
As unintentional as it was and even if he immediately corrected himself, the gaffe, which was not repeated by the English-to-Japanese interpreters at the meeting, was given a chance to go wild by Japanese media. It immediately triggered a backlash on social media as it went viral online.
However, at the meeting itself, Bach went on to promote the Games as the “best-ever prepared” despite the myriad logistical challenges posed by the pandemic and changes that became necessary as a result.
He advocated for a nationalistic passion and the Japanese when he said: “The Japanese people can have confidence in all the efforts we are undertaking to make these Games for them secure and safe, with all the intensive, most strict Covid-19 countermeasures,
“You have managed to make Tokyo the best-ever prepared city for the Olympic Games. This is even more remarkable under the difficult circumstances we all have to face. Now it’s 10 days before the opening ceremony. That also means there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Following the strict COVID-19 regulations in place, Bach had to stay quarantined upon arrival at his hotel and recently began active involvement with the preparations. He will likely hold a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, on Wednesday to visit Hiroshima at the end of the week, as part of his pre-Games schedule.
The local reception of the decision by Bach and other senior IOC officials to keep the Olympics on schedule has not changed. Criticisms have come from the public based on their belief that at a time of rising infections, it was not conscionable to welcome about 11,000 athletes with the possibility of triggering another spike of COVID-19 infection rates.
Apart from the athletes, there will be sponsors, reporters and officials of various bodies with different roles to play for the success of the hosting and thereby multiplying the risks of infections. This concern is worsened by the very real possibility of the migration of more infectious and potent strains of the virus into Japan.
All these and the slow rollout of Japan’s vaccinations led Suga’s government to impose a fourth state of emergency on Tokyo on Monday, announcing measures that included an unpopular ban on serving alcohol at bars and restaurants, and enforced early closures on their businesses to avoid coming under government fines.
As THEWILL reported, when the emergency was effected, organisers ruled out the possibility of having domestic spectators at almost all Olympic venues. This was a very clear reversal of an earlier decision to allow a limited number of people to watch live sport, in a social-distancing setting.
Now, organisers ask those interested in the outcomes of the Games to watch their favourites compete on TV rather than bother about travelling across the city to catch up the competition happening in person to help organisers keep up with making sure it all goes as planned and limit the spread of the virus.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
