Games head Parsons says postponed event may get cancelled otherwise
\nnews agency
\nCANBERRA:
\nNext year\u2019s Paralympics need to be able to guarantee zero coronavirus cases, the head of the Games has told AFP, adding that they cannot go ahead if protection measures don\u2019t improve.
\nThe warning from International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons comes as Tokyo marks exactly one year to the postponed Games on Monday, with the pandemic still raging worldwide.
\nParsons said some para-athletes were particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, and that at current risk levels the Paralympics could not take place.
\n\u201cIf the situation was like it is today… if we were going to start tomorrow, we could not go ahead,\u201d Parsons said in an interview. \u201cWe need to learn more, prepare better.\u201d
\nAfter a recent surge in coronavirus cases, Tokyo is skipping the sort of public events held in 2019 to mark one year before the Games\u2019 original start date.<\/p>\n
The unprecedented decision to delay the Olympics and Paralympics over the pandemic has created a logistical nightmare for organisers, and concerns remain over whether they can safely take place at all.<\/p>\n
Parsons said current social distancing measures and standards for testing and tracing would not be enough to protect some 4,350 athletes plus staff and tens of thousands of fans, volunteers and media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not working with acceptable levels of risk. This is the bottom line, this is where we draw the line in the sand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow we can ensure that we will not have one single case? One single case in the village can really disrupt the Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Really severe, really fast\u2019<\/p>\n
Exactly what measures will be necessary, and possible, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Tokyo organisers and Olympic and Paralympic officials are expected to begin discussions next month on everything from quarantines to barring fans.<\/p>\n
Parsons stopped short of saying he was optimistic that the Paralympics will go ahead, saying instead that he was \u201cencouraged\u201d by the restart of leagues such as US basketball\u2019s NBA.<\/p>\n
But he acknowledged that the Games will be infinitely more complicated than other competitions, given their scale, number of events and international nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why I\u2019m saying, if we don\u2019t discover better ways of doing it, social distancing, monitoring, testing, it will be very difficult,\u201d Parsons said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to have different from what the Olympic athletes have is not the protection to prevent them from being contaminated, it\u2019s what happens if they get contaminated, because it can be really severe, really fast,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe standard we have to take is, it doesn\u2019t matter if you have a disability or not. You don\u2019t get the virus, full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parsons also warned that the fallout from coronavirus posed a longer-term threat to para-sports, if government and sponsor support dwindles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Games head Parsons says postponed event may get cancelled otherwise news agency CANBERRA: Next year\u2019s Paralympics need to be able to guarantee zero coronavirus cases, the head of the Games has told AFP, adding that they cannot go ahead if protection measures don\u2019t improve. The warning from International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons comes as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n