Is the verdict in? According to consistent sources, Japanese authorities and the organizing committee have decided to ban foreign spectators from the Tokyo Games next summer.
Officially, the decision on whether to accept spectators from abroad will be announced by the end of March. Seiko Hashimoto, the new president of the organizing committee, confirmed this on Wednesday, March 3, in front of the media, following a virtual meeting with Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, Andrew Parsons, his IPC counterpart, Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, and Tamayo Marukawa, the Olympic minister.
Several options have been considered over the past few months: the Games with a reduced number of spectators, the Games with an audience exclusively made up of Japanese residents, and finally, the Games without spectators.
In recent weeks, experts have mostly supported the decision to ban foreign spectators.
Thomas Bach has said something along the same lines. “We are going to focus on the essential, that is, primarily the competitions,” he suggested. “The emphasis should clearly be on this priority.” The athletes, therefore. With or without a public. Logical speech.
Before the pandemic began, the Games organizers were planning to attract 7.8 million spectators to the Olympic Games, then 2.3 million to the Paralympic Games. Ticket sales were estimated at 800 million dollars.
