What Virus? The I.O.C. Says the Summer Olympics Will Go On

Abe did not elaborate on whether holding the Games “perfectly” would necessitate postponing them.

Athletes across Italy, Spain and much of France are largely locked down. In the United States, athletes in every sport are scrambling for training spaces, as facilities are ordered closed. The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee is not letting any new athletes come to its training center in Colorado Springs, fearing they might infect the roughly 200 athletes who are there now.

Also, the I.O.C. and the international sports federations that run the competitions are seeking to manage the final qualification process that determines who makes the Games. Just 57 percent of the Olympic spots have been secured by athletes.

Even if federations are able to reschedule competitions that have been canceled, it’s not clear that athletes from every country will be able to participate because of their exposure to the coronavirus. That could force the federations and national Olympic Committees to use current rankings to select Olympians, a system that might have eliminated someone like Michael Phelps from making the Games four years ago in Rio de Janeiro. Phelps was coming out of retirement and might not have qualified for the United States or for certain events he won at the 2016 Games had he not been able to participate in a trials competition.

Bach gave the federations until the beginning of April to come up with new qualification standards.

Athletes have been complaining for weeks about a lack of communication from both the I.O.C. and the federations.

“A lot of athletes are under stress and uncertainty,” said Han Xiao, the chairman of the U.S.O.P.C.’s Athlete Advisory Council. “What would help is if the I.O.C. were a little more transparent about its plans.”

Xiao said that while American Olympians understood that the decision to cancel or postpone the Games could not be taken lightly, the I.O.C. could ease some anxiety by at least providing some sort of decision-making timeline or deadline, so athletes have a better idea of what to expect in the coming weeks and months.

Some of the uncertainty has been unavoidable as researchers struggle to understand the novel virus. Just days ago, the Centers for Disease Control was discouraging events with more than 250 people. On Monday, that number dropped to 10. Bach said that moving forward, the Olympic organizations would share information as it came to them and directed athletes to a website for updates, athlete365.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/sports/olympics/olympics-tokyo-coronavirus-bach.html