No confirmation on securing all venues yet: Tokyo Olympics spokesperson

Tokyo, July 9 (IANS) A Tokyo Olympics spokesperson said on Thursday that reports of organisers securing all venues for the postponed Games are “optimistic” but nothing has been officially announced yet. While organisers had previously announced that 80 percent of venues had been secured, Japanese media reports on Wednesday said that they have secured all venues.

“We have seen a series of media reports concerning the status of securing venues for the Games in 2021,” said Masa Takaya in a weekly news conference.

“Tokyo 2020 is aware of these reports but I need to be very clear … this is not something on which Tokyo Metropolitan Government or the Tokyo organising committee has made a formal announcement.

“The organising committee has not made such an announcement at this stage and during this process, it is very unfortunate to see such reports based on this optimistic view.”

Takaya also dismissed a recent comment attributed in Japanese media to Tokyo 2020 organising committee President Yoshiro Mori in which he said that the organisers are looking at April 2021 as a deadline to decide whether to go ahead with the Games or not.

“We don’t know in what kind of environment he might have made such a comment,” Takaya said. “In that respect, we don’t even know if he made such a comment. We do not have any such deadline.”

–IANS

rkm/bbh