Waiting for Tokyo: How 110,000 Olympic volunteers put their lives on hold

📆 3/7/2021 8:40 PM
📰 Reuters

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TOKYO - More than 110,000 Olympic volunteers had their dream summer all mapped out for 2020. But now, with the Games postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic and for many still in doubt, they are left waiting in limbo, lives on hold.

A screen displays an online gathering with volunteers for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan July 2020. Picture taken in July 2020. Nippon Foundation Volunteer Support Centre/Handout via REUTERS

“I’m actually wavering about taking part now,” said Yamamura, 40, who lives in southwestern Japan, far from Tokyo. Some 1,000 of the 2020 organiser’s volunteers have quit, while the Tokyo side has seen fewer than 200 leave - neither of which, officials say, will have any impact on hosting the Games. Several hundred left due to sexist remarks by the president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, but after he quit some wanted to return.Organisers insist all systems are go, but signals are mixed, volunteers interviewed by Reuters say.

“I had a whole life planned ... and then after the Olympics I’d finally go home, and I’d start a new life,” said a Canadian English teacher in southwestern Japan, 36, declining to be named citing sensitivities around his work situation.

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