Tokyo: The International Olympics Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said that the Olympic governing body would undertake "great efforts" to ensure that those visiting Japan to watch the Summer Olympic Games next year can be vaccinated. Bach said he was confident that spectators would be able to watch the Olympic Games from the stadiums without any fear of COVID-19 infection.
Bach is on a two-day visit in Japan to meet with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Games organisers to discuss how the Olympics can be held next year.
Speaking after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in Tokyo, Bach heaped praise on Tokyo Olympics organisers for their COVID-19 countermeasures.
"We are putting really a huge tool box together in which we will put all the different measures we can imagine," he said. "Next year... we will be able to take (the) right tools out of this tool box and apply them in order to ensure safe environment for all participants in the games."
"This makes us all very, very confident that we can have spectators in the Olympic stadia next year," Bach said.
Earlier this month Tokyo had successfully staged a four-nation gymnastics competition, its first international sporting event amid the pandemic. This event appeared as evidence that the 2021 Olympics Games are a high possibility.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced IOC and Japnese government to postpone the Olympics Games to next year, PM Yoshihide Suga insisted that the Games would go ahead.
On Monday, he said that they would serve "as proof that mankind overcame the virus".
