(ATR) The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee admitted on Wednesday that about 10,000 of the 80,000 volunteers who were scheduled to work the Olympics and Paralympics this summer have quit.
"There’s no doubt that one of the reasons is concern over coronavirus infections," Tokyo 2020 CEO Muto Toshiro said, as quoted by Kyodo News. Muto added that the loss of about 12.5 percent of the volunteers would not affect operations of the Games.
The Games have already been scaled back to help minimize infection risk and save on the costs associated with postponing the event by a year.
Earlier this year, organizers said about 1,000 volunteers quit in the days following former Tokyo 2020 president Mori Yoshiro’s sexist comments made in early February. He would quit his post soon after and was replaced by Hashimoto Seiko.
In March, Tokyo 2020 announced that the roughly 2,300 overseas volunteers would not be allowed into the country though there could be exceptions for those who have a specific skill that would not be available within Japan.
Training for specific roles for volunteers working at competition venues and the Olympic Village began in April. Venue-specific training is set to start this month.
The Field Cast, or Games volunteers, are under the purview of Tokyo 2020.
The Tokyo government separately recruited about 30,000 City Cast or city volunteers. It is not known how many of those may have quit.
Despite polls that show a clear and growing majority of Japanese wanting the Olympics and Paralympics to be cancelled or postponed again, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide insists that they will go on.
Homepage photo: Tokyo 2020
Written by Gerard Farek
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