WITH less than 150 days to go, the Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) president Dr Robin Mitchell has highlighted support being deployed toward Oceania preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games this year.
Dr Mitchell emphasised that ONOC is currently working around key areas of support for its National Olympic Committees (NOCs) ensuring the safe participation of its member countries at the Games in Japan in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Some Pacific island countries COVID-19 free or with success containing cases at their borders are still vulnerable given varying degrees of vaccination programs.
“The need is to emphasise the importance of compliance and shared risks of non-compliance and thirdly, to demonstrate that the planning so far is robust and rooted in science and stakeholder listening, bearing in mind that we’re taking part in a Games, a pandemic that forced the postponement of the Games,” he said.
Dr Mitchell said that all of the island countries in Oceania would be represented at the Games.
“Through the universality places, most of our National Olympic Committees will have up to three athletes that can take part without reaching qualifying standards,” he said.
Majority of the athletes in the region have had to resort to training in-country in preparation as a result of travel restrictions around the world due to the on-going pandemic.
“At the moment all the focus from the organising committee is on Tokyo before looking at the pre-Games training, so until the borders open up between the islands and Japan, most of our island NOCs are training in their countries,” he said.
Five NOCs in Oceania – Guam, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and American Samoa have begun COVID-19 vaccinations since December 2020, with more countries to start soon.
He added that while the Tokyo 2020 Games Organising Committee has not made vaccinations a requirement for travelling athletes and officials, being vaccinated would be ideal and the onus falls on the NOCs to work with their respective governments.
