JAPAN’S Asahi Shimbun, an official partner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, called for the Summer Games to be cancelled in an editorial on Wednesday, citing risks to public safety and strains on the medical system from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Poll after poll has shown the majority of the public is opposed to holding the Games this summer, concerned about tens of thousands of athletes and officials descending on a country that has mostly remained closed to foreigners since last year and where vaccinations have proceeded slowly.
Doctors’ associations have protested holding the Games, investors have talked up the benefits of shelving them, and maverick businessmen such as Masayoshi Son have called for cancelling the games.
That Asahi, one of Japan’s most prestigious newspapers, broke ranks with other partners is likely to intensify focus on the viability of the Games.
“We ask Prime Minister (Yoshihide) Suga to calmly and objectively assess the situation and decide on the cancellation of the event this summer,” said the paper, a left-leaning daily often critical of Suga’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
“We are far from a situation in which everybody can be confident they will be ‘safe and secure,’” the paper added, invoking the government mantra about the Games. “Sadly, that is not the reality.”
Several of Japan’s other major dailies, such as the Nikkei, the Mainichi and the Yomiuri, are also Tokyo 2020 official partners.
The Asahi’s editorial was widely shared on social media, garnering more than 30,000 tweets by late morning.
But Olympic organizers have dug in their heels, pointing to other successful sports events as evidence that the Games can go ahead as planned.
