Tokyo Olympics an opportunity to bring world together: LA 2028 chief

Los Angeles, April 26 (IANS) 2028 Los Angeles Olympics chairman Casey Wasserman said that the Tokyo Olympics has the opportunity to bring the world together in a “truly special, unique way.”

“I do think, if there is some medical successes to be had between now and 2021 and the Olympics go off in Tokyo, I actually think it has the opportunity to bring the world together in a truly special, unique way,” he said on The Bill Simmons Podcast.

“It may just reignite people’s passion for hosting the Olympic Games and the value of what people talk about as Olympism.

“When you get lost in, whether the trouble cities have or the commercialisation or all the things that happen around a Games and you get back to sort of at its root what it is, I think it has a true opportunity.”

The 2020 Olympics became the first ever to be postponed. The rising number of coronavirus cases around the world and the restrictions that were imposed in most countries around the world led to a number of key qualifiers and tournaments being cancelled or dropping out of the qualification calendar through the early part of the year.

Eventually, the Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee said in a joint statement that the Tokyo Olympics had been pushed back by a year. While it is now scheduled to be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, a number of global health experts have expressed their doubts on whether the situation around the pandemic will be conducive then for the Games to be held successfully.

–IANS

rkm/rs/