3/19/2020 6:11 PM
(Act. 19.03.2020 18:11)
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The Olympic flame is expected in Japan on Friday, and the flame of enthusiasm for the summer games is dying out among athletes. Every athlete’s dream has become a nightmare as a result of the corona virus crisis. “Every day that the athletes are unable to train, it becomes more difficult for fair games to take place,” said Max Hartung, Chairman of Athletes Germany.
The Saber fencer qualified for the Tokyo Games, like many others, finds it difficult to write off the Olympics because it is a “fixed point in life”. Decathlon world champion Niklas Kaul is also skeptical about holding on to the Tokyo games. “I would find that difficult. Alone out of fairness,” said the 22-year-old.
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Hayley Wickenheiser was the first IOC member to take a clear stance against a staging. The four-time ice hockey Olympic champion from Canada described the coronavirus crisis as “bigger than the Olympic Games”. Wickenheiser is a member of the IOC athletes commission. And she knows what she is talking about: As a prospective doctor, she works in the emergency room.
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Once again, IOC President Thomas Bach’s IOC athlete, Kirsty Coventry, is moving. In a conference call with 220 athlete representatives, she encouraged “to continue doing what you do” and then stressed that the “athletes want to go to the games in Tokyo”.
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Bach was pleased with this “constructive exchange” and assured that safety and health had top priority in all considerations. The fencing Olympic champion from 1976 reaffirmed that a decision – Olympia yes or no – still had time: “We still have more than four months to go.”
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The Verein Athleten Deutschland criticized the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee for “stubbornly continuing to plan the games”. There was “great uncertainty” in the IOC conference call. “The IOC prevented any speculation about alternative scenarios and, upon request, did not communicate a deadline for a final decision,” it said.
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So far, 57 percent of the approximately 11,000 athletes have qualified for the games in Japan. Bach assured that the IOC wanted to work with the international professional associations to make all “necessary and practical adjustments to their respective qualification systems”.
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World Athletics Association President Sebastian Coe does not want to write off the Tokyo Games either, but is concerned about the massive restrictions on Olympic qualifications and sees “no more equal opportunities” as the Brit of the English newspaper “The Times” said. Javelin throwing Olympic champion Thomas Röhler from Jena agrees with him. “I currently see no basis for a fair sporting comparison – and that should be the Olympic Games,” he told the “Sportbuzzer”.
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For the sports lawyer Michael Lehner, a quick cancellation of the Olympic Games would therefore be “a signal to the world”, the lawyer from Karlsruhe told the “Mannheimer Morgen”. You can’t cancel the small football games, think about curfews, close schools and universities and think, “I could play big games in July.” And if the games were to take place, it would be a “handicraft Olympiad”.
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