After the International Olympic Committee said Tuesday that the Tokyo Olympics will be held as scheduled and that a new system to select participating athletes in each sport will be decided by early April, officials of sports governing bodies and other relevant people have given various responses.
"All we have to do is to work toward our goal," Shinsuke Yabata, vice chairman of the Japan Softball Association's training division. "We'll make preparations steadily as planned without being swayed by various opinions."
Toru Kobinata, vice president of the International Federation of Sport Climbing, said, "I hope it will be held as scheduled, but it's unpredictable."
The IOC, which held an extraordinary executive board meeting Tuesday in light of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, intends to hold postponed qualification events as long as all athletes and teams have fair access to them. However, Tetsuo Komiyama, an executive board member of the Japan Weightlifting Association, said: "What we want to know most is when [the qualifiers] will be held. For athletes who need to lose weight, the situation is mentally tough. I want [the IOC] to show its policy as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, Hayley Wickenheiser, a former Canadian ice hockey player who is a member of the IOC's Athletes' Commission, criticized the IOC's stance to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics as scheduled, calling the IOC "insensitive and irresponsible" on Twitter.
After the extraordinary meeting, the IOC obtained consent for its stance from the various international sports federations (IFs) during a teleconference.
Yasuhiro Yamashita, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, said, "As many IFs were not well informed, I think it [the teleconference] was held mainly to give them information."
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