By Makereta Komai, PACNEWS Editor in Tokyo

TOKYO, 07 AUGUST 2021 (PACNEWS)

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Athletes give Games an Olympic soul

Addressing journalists Friday, Bach said at first he thought the Tokyo Olympic Games would be without a soul – given the restrictions and the ban on spectators at all competition venues.

“But this is totally a different Olympic Games with athletes giving this game an ‘Olympic soul.’

From his interaction with athletes and visits to competition venues, Bach said he was hearing the same dominant feelings of athletes happy to be competing again and being extremely grateful that the Olympics could happen, after the postponement last year.

“From this I can conclude that the two feelings of togetherness and gratefulness are coming from athletes who have been separated for a long time from other athletes and from their own families. In most cases, these athletes have not competed in regional and world championships in the past year and there was a longing to come together again to compete.”

He said the level of competition, surprisingly, was extremely high.

“You can see in the tight results, many new world and Olympic records, personal best and national records set at the Games.

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High level of Olympic scholarship holders performed well

Another record he was very pleased with was the achievement of Olympic Solidarity scholarship holders who won medals in their respective events.

“The Olympic Solidarity supported 836 athletes from 128 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in 26 sports. Of these, 23 won gold, 25 received silver and 25 bronze medals.

"The Olympic Games have been a powerful demonstration of the unifying power of sport. We have experienced this great solidarity among all the athletes and all the teams, in the village and at the competition venues. 

“This shows that the overall solidarity approach of the IOC works. The success of this solidarity approach taken by the IOC is also underlined by a record number of 88 NOCs who have won medals (as of) today. That's a new Olympic record and we still have two and a half days to go,” said President Bach

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Gratitude to Japanese Government and Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee 

Thanking the Japanese Government, Tokyo 2020 organisers and the thousands of Games volunteers, the IOC President confidently announced, “The Olympic community here in Tokyo has been the best tested community in the last few weeks.” 

"We have already passed the mark of 600,000 tests during these games. There were 42,500 arrival tests (which) had a very low positivity rate of 0.08%. Then we had 571,000 screening tests, which had an even lower positivity rate of 0.02 %.

On whether it was right for the people of Japan to bear the costs due to postponement and the loss of ticket revenues, Bach said the investment in the Olympic Games is fairly shared between the Olympic movement and the respective host country or host city.

“When you refer to the investments being made, then you are including in these investments - the construction of new sports venues and other venues - from which the Japanese people and the people of Tokyo will benefit for generations to come.

"If I can give only one example – the Olympic Village. You cannot count the Olympic Village as a cost of the Olympic Games because after these Olympic Games, for a decade to come the Japanese people will benefit from these apartments, and they will offer housing to the people of Tokyo and the people of Japan. The same is true of sports facilities and other facilities.

"With regards to the postponement of the games, if the games (had) been cancelled at the time, we would have seen a situation where, for Japan, many of the investments would have been without any (prospect) of revenue because then nobody would have come to Tokyo, to Japan. There would have been no exposure, either for Tokyo, or for Japan or the sponsors.

"On the other hand, for the IOC it would have been the easier solution (to cancel) because then we could have drawn on the insurance we had at the time, so the IOC would have been saving money.

“We decided not to draw on this insurance but, on the contrary, to invest even more to make the Games happen for the athletes,” explained Bach.