{"id":102319,"date":"2021-07-19T18:46:48","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T18:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=102319"},"modified":"2021-07-19T18:57:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T18:57:28","slug":"fourth-covid-case-detected-in-tokyo-olympic-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=102319","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Covid case detected in Tokyo Olympic Village"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TOKYO: Olympic Village was hit by a fourth coronavirus case on Monday and major sponsor Toyota said it would not run any Games-related TV ads as the event struggled for support just days before the opening ceremony.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Czech beach volleyball player became the fourth case and the third infected athlete in the Village, where thousands of competitors are living in a biosecure “bubble”.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, a teenage female gymnast became the first American athlete to test positive at the Games, with a teammate also isolating as a result. Neither was named.<\/p>\n

The delayed 2020 Games will officially get under way on Friday in a near-empty Olympic Stadium, with Tokyo under a coronavirus state of emergency after a spike in cases.<\/p>\n

The latest Asahi Shimbun newspaper poll found a majority of respondents, 55 percent, were against holding the Games this summer, with 33 percent in favour.<\/p>\n

And a composer for the opening ceremony stepped down after admitting bullying disabled schoolmates, comments that caused an outcry in Japan.<\/p>\n

It has not been a smooth final build-up for the Games, which were postponed last year, but officials will hope the tide of public opinion turns when the sports programme starts.<\/p>\n

In a sign of the current sentiment Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, said it would not run Olympics-related TV ads, and its executives would not be present at the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

“Toyota officials will not attend the opening ceremony, and the chief reason behind it is there will be no spectators,” Toyota spokeswoman Shiori Hashimoto told AFP.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 1,000 Olympic officials and VIPs including sponsors will be allowed to watch the opening ceremony on Friday, according to Japanese media.<\/p>\n

Toyota’s operating officer Jun Nagata earlier told reporters it was becoming more difficult for the Olympics to strike a positive chord with the public.<\/p>\n

“It is turning into an Olympics that cannot get understanding (from the public) in various ways,” Nagata told Japanese media.<\/p>\n

– ‘Safe place to stay’ –<\/h2>\n

Organisers insisted the Village was safe despite the coronavirus diagnosis for Czech beach volleyball player Ondrej Perusic, which follows positive tests from two South African footballers and a video analyst.<\/p>\n

Twenty-one members of the South African men’s football contingent are in isolation after being named as close contacts, disrupting preparations for their opening game on Thursday against Japan.<\/p>\n

Tokyo 2020 spokesman Masa Takaya earlier said, before the latest cases came to light, that there had been 61 positive cases connected with the Games so far — a tiny fraction of the thousands of tests carried out.<\/p>\n

“The IOC (International Olympic Committee) and Tokyo 2020 are absolutely clear that the Olympic Village is a safe place to stay,” Takaya said.<\/p>\n

Brian McCloskey, chairman of the Independent Expert Panel advising the IOC, said a system of “filtering” -\u2013 starting with athletes being tested before departure \u2013- was working.<\/p>\n

“The numbers we’re seeing are actually extremely low,” he said. “They’re probably lower than we expected, if anything.”<\/p>\n

Athletes are tested daily at the Olympics, where they are also told to observe social distancing and wear masks unless they are competing, eating or sleeping.<\/p>\n

When asked about the risk of a cluster in the Village, McCloskey said: “All the measures that we have in place… will reduce the risk of spreading it.”<\/p>\n

Composer Keigo Oyamada, known as Cornelius, is the latest in a string of departures from the Tokyo Olympic set-up, including former chief Yoshiro Mori, who stepped down over sexist comments.<\/p>\n

After news of his involvement in the ceremony circulated online, interviews from the mid-1990s reemerged in which he discussed, without apparent remorse, his bullying of schoolmates with handicaps.<\/p>\n

“I have become painfully aware that accepting the offer of my musical participation in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics lacked consideration to a lot of people,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO: Olympic Village was hit by a fourth coronavirus case on Monday and major sponsor Toyota said it would not run any Games-related TV ads […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102321,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102319\/revisions\/102321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}