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Organisers announce revised Test events calendar for Tokyo Olympics
The Tokyo Organising Committee for Olympics and Paralympics games on Friday announced their revised test events calendar, following the postponement of the Games to 2021.
The test events for the upcoming Olympics will assess three essential factors – the field of play for each event, the use of technology and workforce, with an increased focus on technical aspects including the countermeasures against the pandemic.
The test event will include a total of 18 events including the marathon which was shifted from Tokyo to Sapporo in the aftermath of the previous test event.
The test events are scheduled to start in March 2021 and are expected to run till May 2021. The Tokyo Olympics on the other hand, is scheduled to open on 23rd June 2021 after it was postponed by eight months following the pandemic.
The eighteen disciplines for the test event includes swimming, waterpolo, rugby, diving, artistic swimming, BMX freestyle, track cycling, para swimming, shooting, skateboarding, volleyball, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnasitics, athletics, para athletics, wheel chair rugby, 3x3 basketball and marathon.
In an announcement made through an online press conference, the authorities confirmed that at least four of the test events including swimming, gymnastics, diving and volleyball will have athletes from foreign countries participating.
In contrast, the test events will have no foreign fans while some of the local Japanese people might be allowed to witness the events, the authorities confirmed.
This announcement from the organising committee comes just days after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief, Thomas Bach, said that they are confident of conducting the games without any major hiccups with the presence of fans in the stadium.
The test event announcement was made the same day the Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported a highest single day spike in the coronavirus cases in the city.
Compared to other countries, Japan has already started allowing sporting fans in the country in the stadiums partially. The final match of Japan Series of professional baseball saw a total of 19,000 people in the stadium earlier this week. They had also recently allowed thousands of fans to attend an international gymnastics event in Tokyo earlier this month.
