(Geneva) The International Olympic Committee promised leaders around the world on Wednesday that the Beijing Winter Games will take place as planned, the day after a Swiss leader’s public exit to demand that talks be initiated to postpone the event. event due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Swiss Olympic Committee mentioned that the IOC offered the necessary guarantees for the holding of the event next month, during a videoconference that brought together many dignitaries.
The IOC has also promised a case-by-case management of athletes who recover from a positive COVID-19 diagnosis before flying to China, the Swiss team said in a press release.
“The prospect of a postponement is simply no longer possible,” said the Swiss team leader, Ralph Stöckli, in a press release.
The IOC hopes to avoid a second consecutive postponement. The Tokyo Summer Games, which were scheduled to take place in 2020, have been postponed for a year. The decision was made just four months before the opening ceremony.
Stöckli had, however, expressed his doubts about the decision to go ahead with the Beijing Games due to the meteoric rise in the number of COVID-19 cases among Olympic athletes, in a televised interview in Switzerland on Tuesday.
“We really need to discuss the possibility of postponing the Olympic Games,” Stöckli told the French-speaking state channel RTS. If our best athletes are absent then it will be very, very difficult [à digérer]. ”
After listening to the IOC on Wednesday, the Swiss Olympic team indicated that it is “satisfied with the guarantees offered on this subject”.
Among the Swiss squad’s other concerns that were alleviated on Wednesday is the waiting period for an athlete who has reportedly been infected with COVID-19 before being able to enter Chinese territory. The IOC and the Chinese organizing committee have announced that a committee of international experts will look into each case and manage them in “the most flexible way possible,” the Swiss team said.
“This is a good sign”, evoked Stöckli, if not because of the increase in the number of infections “we should have taken for granted that many athletes, who no longer present any risk of infection, would have been deprived of their dreams of participating in the Olympic Games ”.
The team nevertheless recalled the “very strict” conditions to qualify, prepare and compete, while the opening ceremony must take place on February 4, in 30 days.