No Retreat from Tokyo Olympics Says IOC Spokesman

(ATR) The IOC shows no sign of wavering on the Tokyo Olympics, now 10 weeks away.

Speaking to reporters following the latest monthly meeting of the IOC Executive Board, IOC spokesman Mark Adams downplayed the influence of drooping public opinion polls in Japan for the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

"We have to pay attention to the public opinion but are not driven by it," said Adams. Recent polling shows that upwards of 80 percent of those surveyed believe the Olympics should be cancelled or postponed again.

Adams says the IOC has done its own polling of public opinion in Japan, but that he did not have results to disclose.

The 30-minute briefing was dominated by questions about the possibility of adverse affects on the Games by the continuing struggle to contain the coronavirus in Japan.

With Tokyo still under a state of emergency, Adams says preparations for the Games will not be slowed.

"We are moving full ahead," he said in the virtual briefing anchored at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"There has been a small extension of the emergency situation but we continue to plan for full Games. And that’s the way it is and that’s how it needs to be and the only way it can remain for us.

"Everything is telling us from the test events to the international events that the Games can go ahead and will go ahead," says Adams.

With about 100 media on line for the briefing, Adams took a final question from an individual identified as from Yahoo. But instead of a question from a reporter, it was an outburst from a heckler waving a "No Olympics" banner.

"No Olympics anywhere, no Olympics anywhere. F**k the Olympics. We don’t want the Olympics anywhere. Not in Los Angeles, not in Tokyo…" at which point the caller was cut off. Adams kept smiling through it all.

Adams, who delivered the briefing without IOC President Thomas Bach, who usually attends, noted that "this stunt would have been a little more interesting" had Bach been present.

"I’m used to it," Adams declared about the breach of decorum.

Next meeting of the IOC EB is June 8.

Reported by Ed Hula.