加拿大奥委会主席对东京奥运会充满信心Head of Canadian Olympic Committee confident

safe as they wait for their vaccines i


spoke with the ceo of the canadian


olympic committee about that


and about his hopes for the games


so david shoemaker thank you for joining


us these are your first games as


the head of the canadian olympic


committee you sure know how to pick them


what a start


well you know i'm gonna wait an extra


year for my first games but


i do think the tokyo 2020 olympic games


will be worth the wait


so that's that's the ambition but i i


think the bottom line right now is will


it be


safe enough to send canadian athletes to


tokyo


look we're very confident that it can be


done safely


um that the ioc has put in place counter


measures that the tokyo organizers have


really put their mind to how this can be


done in a safe and secure way


and we're drawing from all the


experience over the course of the last


year


in terms of how sport can be staged


safely in


effect bubble concept but there has to


be a bar


for establishing if and when you pull


the plug on this


what is the bar what is the measure that


will decide it for you


the the advice of our chief medical


officer dr mike wilkinson


and public health authorities but we're


not going to speculate as to how high


the bar is set


as we know in sport you know the bar can


move a little bit depending on how


people are jumping


but we're taking it very seriously we're


planning in a way that


minimizes our delegation to historically


low numbers


and we've made decisions not to do


things uh for example there won't be a


canada olympic house in tokyo


and athletes won't you know tour the


city or the country after the


after the games they'll they'll compete


and they'll come home within 48 hours


we have to do things differently these


games will be different


so you told us in january that that you


had communicated your desire


to the government to have the team


vaccinated before going to the games


so what what's happening with that well


i'd relayed the ioc's desire to see our


team be vaccinated we've planned all


along as though we won't have vaccines


and


we actually have not made a request yet


um


from the to the federal government for


vaccines


we still think that there are important


people in canada my my


children's teachers for example or the


grocery clerks


that need to be prioritized in this


country uh so we continue to wait our


turn our athletes are adamant they want


to wait our turn we just think that


their turn may be coming up a little


sooner


and and we're hopeful that they'll get


vaccinated before tokyo um


just about every other country in the


olympic movement has either now


vaccinated their athletes or has plans


to do so


it's interesting to hear you you talking


about this because it occurs to me


should anybody actually be taking these


risks


and i'm you know why should these games


go ahead


what makes it worth it well i hope it


doesn't surprise you


adrian to hear that i think that the


olympic games mean something and


and that it means something not just to


the athletes who've set their


their life's dreams around competing at


the olympic games but that it means


something more broadly to canadians and


that


in the midst of a pandemic that these


games can help


lift us up inspire us and be a real you


know beacon of hope


all right david shoemaker uh fingers


crossed we see you


in tokyo thank you for this


thank you adrian