Thomas Bach on the success of Tokyo 2020: “the athletes gave these Olympic Games a great Olympic soul”

IOC president Thomas Bach admits now that he feared that a lack of spectators at the Tokyo Olympics would leave the Games “without a soul”.

“But fortunately what we have seen here is totally different. Because the athletes gave these Olympic Games a great Olympic soul.”

Bach, speaking at a press conference on Friday, believes this “soul” came from two dominant feelings he found in speaking with them.

“The first was you could experience, and feel and see and hear how much they enjoyed to be together there again. The other feeling which has been expressed in all the many, many conversations that I had, that they are extremely grateful for the fact that the Olympic Games could happen, now, finally.

“These feelings, this atmosphere was spreading from the Olympic Village to the competition venues, where you could see how they were supporting each other, how they were appreciating each other in all the venues.”

“But it was not only that the athletes gave these Olympic Games this Olympic soul. It was also that the sporting level was extremely, and I must say for me, surprisingly high. Because you all know what the athletes had to overcome.”

Later, Bach reiterated “these Olympic Games have far exceeded my personal expectations.”

He also said he had no doubt about the preparedness of Japan to host the Games, saying that Tokyo was the best ever prepared Olympic city.

And he added that all of it “could only be achieved by having made these Olympic Games safe and secure, which was always our top priority”.

He also returned to his familiar theme of the importance of solidarity in making the world a better place to live.

“Given the many political tensions, to say diplomatically, the political tensions we have in this world, there to see all these athletes living together in the Olympic Village under one roof and competing at the same time fiercely with each other, this is a great manifestation of peace and how peace can be achieved if everybody is following the same rules and if everybody is living in solidarity with each other.

“So it has become clear again that without solidarity there is no peace.”