IOC, Tokyo Olympics to unveil rule book for beating COVID-19 pandemic
The HinduThe International Olympic Committee and Tokyo organizers are set to roll out Playbook next week, a rulebook to explain how 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and tens of thousands of others will try to safely enter Japan when the Olympics open in just under six months. “We created four different scenarios, one that had travel restrictions, clusters — to one where the pandemic was nearly gone,” Lucia Montanarella, head of IOC media operations, explained on Tuesday for a panel discussion held by the International Sports Press Association. READ | “The present scenario is very much like one of those that we'd created, with the pandemic still among us, and some countries being able to contain it, some not.” The Playbook will be about creating safe bubbles in Tokyo, and will be updated with changing protocols as the July 23 opening gets closer. IOC member Sebastian Coe was on Japanese television on Wednesday, and IOC member Dick Pound suggested last week the “most realistic way of going ahead” was prioritizing athletes.