Thursday, 24 June 2021 | AFP | Tokyo
The stripped-back Tokyo Games, held despite the ongoing pandemic, will highlight the Olympics’ ‘true values’, Tokyo 2020 chief Seiko Hashimoto said as organisers mark a month to go.
The Games will be unlike any other, with overseas fans banned and athletes kept away from the public. Competitors have had to leave their families behind and spectators will be capped at 10,000 people.
But former Olympian Hashimoto said the restrictions were a chance to look beyond the usual pomp and celebration that accompany the Games, and to focus on the sport.
“In recent years when I was participating as an athlete, there were concerns that this (event) has become so huge,” she told reporters. “The Games tended to end with extreme excitement, but because of that the original meaning and values… were not fully communicated,” she added.
“This time, I feel that the true values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games are finally being discussed.”
Hashimoto is a seven-time Olympian who competed at both summer and winter Games, in speed skating and as a sprint cyclist.
She came to office after her predecessor, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, resigned over a sexism row after he said women speak too much in meetings.
