A member of the Tokyo Organizing Committee has asked for help from President Biden to get the Olympic Games over the line.
The International Olympic Committee and Japanese organizers have been increasingly bullish in recent weeks about the prospect of holding the postponed Games, despite dwindling public support and rising coronavirus cases.
However, Haruyuki Takahashi thinks the Olympics’ future could depend on the support of the president.
“Mr Biden is dealing with a tough situation with the coronavirus,” Takahashi told the Wall Street Journal. “But if he makes a positive statement about the Olympics going ahead, we’d gain strong momentum.”
“It’s up to the U.S. I hate to say it, but (IOC President) Thomas Bach and the IOC are not the ones who are able to make the decision about the Games,” he added. “They don’t have that level of leadership.”
Biden hasn’t spoken publicly about the Olympics since becoming president last week.
The United States brings the largest contingent of athletes to any Olympics and also provides the IOC with its most lucrative television deal.
The IOC say that Takahashi had no intimate knowledge of situation and that “his comments are obsolete.”
“It is regrettable that Mr. Takahashi does not know the facts,” said a statement. “First: It is USOPC that decides about the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic team. Second: USOPC has never left a doubt about their participation”
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee said last week they had not received any information suggesting the Games would not happen as planned.
Biden spoke to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan today, but a White House readout of the call made no mention of the Olympics.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has been asked multiple times about whether the president thinks the Olympics, slated to start in July, would be safe, but she hasn’t given an answer.
After saying on Friday that she hadn’t talked to Biden about it, Psaki said the same again today.
“I haven’t had much on it, but I don’t have anything more than I’ve had on other days on it,” Psaki said at the daily White House press briefing. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with him specifically about it.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who was chief executive of the organizing committee behind the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, called for the Tokyo Olympics to go forward in a tweet today.
“Athletes have trained a lifetime to be at their peak,” Romney wrote. “Limit in-person spectators — most of us watch the Games on TV anyway. The world awaits the inspiration of great competition and global sportsmanship.”