Originally Posted by
jib71
I've been backstage at these events. Believe me, many of the athletes have very close contact with each other. Although they're fewer in number than the spectators and less likely to suffer serious consequences from infection with this virus - by virtue of their youth (with some exceptions) and their fitness - they risk being carriers and spreading the infection widely when they return to adoring fans, friends, and family back home.
Oh of course. It's just that the ideas of holding the olympics with only spectators or only athletes really make no sense. It's all or nothing.
Originally Posted by
jib71
Seriously, the olympics can't go ahead this year. The only people who won't admit it are the Japanese government, the IOC, and their insurers. The sooner they get their heads together and work out how to extract themselves from the game of chicken ("We're not cancelling. Are you cancelling?") the better. The failure to admit that the olympics can't go ahead this year is sending the wrong message to the general population.
The trouble is that the Japanese government and IOC both have very little to lose if they keep holding out and never being the ones to choose to cancel. As long as it's not their call it doesn't matter if they are canceled the day before they are supposed to start; it's really the spectators, athletes and (to a lesser extent) local olympic staff that are affected by a late cancellation.