The IOC president makes a major gaffe.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach is an unpopular figure in Japan as he and Olympic delegates stopped listening to scientists and politicians and everyday folks in deciding to go ahead and stage an Olympics while Tokyo remains in a COVID-19 lockdown. Bach did himself no favors when he made his first public comments after arriving in Japan and he mixed up Japanese people with Chinese people. “You have managed to make Tokyo the best-ever prepared city for the Olympic Games. This is even more remarkable under the difficult circumstances we all have to face,” Bach said at the headquarters of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee “Our common target is safe and secure games for everybody. For the athletes, for all the delegations, and most importantly also for the Chinese people, er Japanese people.” Bach is also under fire from human rights groups in Hiroshima for his plan of going to the city on July 16th to visit the Peace Memorial Park which is dedicated to the victims of the 1945 United States atomic bombing and lay flowers there. He is also scheduled to take a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum located in the park. Bach is acting as if he is a head of state but really he is only the president of a sports committee. “We will reaffirm our commitment to peace in the city of peace, Hiroshima,” Bach said of the visit.
A local Hiroshima group has filed a complaint with the local Hiroshima government saying Bach’s trip is politically motivated, taking advantage of the city promoting world peace and thus dishonoring survivors of the bombing. The group is also unhappy with Bach making the trek to Hiroshima from Tokyo while the Tokyo area is in another state of emergency because of a spike in the COVID-19 infections. But the games must go on!
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