News of Moon’s cancellation came soon after another blow from a more surprising source, when the carmaker – and major Olympic sponsor – Toyota said it would not run Tokyo 2020-themed TV adverts during the Games and that its chief executive, Akio Toyoda, was likely to skip the opening ceremony. To compound his misery, a separate poll found that two-thirds of people in Japan do not believe the country can host a safe and secure Olympics. Support for his administration has slumped to 36%, according to a weekend poll, with disapproval at almost 50% – the highest since he took office last September. Yet even a resounding win for the Japanese softball team is unlikely to offer much solace. The softball cannot begin soon enough for Suga, who has talked up sport’s potential to calm a deeply resentful Japanese public. What would have been a highly symbolic visit by the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, to attend the opening ceremony and hold his first face-to-face talks with the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, was abruptly cancelled on Monday after a senior Japanese diplomat in Seoul accused Moon of “masturbating” over his country’s strained ties with Japan. In the space of a couple of days Tokyo 2020 has generated a stream of worrying news that must have organisers doubting if the sport will deliver the much-needed feelgood factor, and offer an alternative conduit for the pent-up emotions of a host population that would prefer the Games were not happening. Coco Gauff will not travel to Tokyo after the American tennis star returned a positive result, while an unnamed member of the US gymnastics team also tested positive after arriving. Six British track and field athletes and two staff are now self-isolating at their hotel in Yokohama after they were deemed close contacts of someone who tested positive on their flight to Japan. The outbreak has cast doubt on the team’s opening match, this Thursday, against Japan. Twenty-one other members of the South African party have been identified as close contacts. Organisers have now identified more than 60 Games-related Covid-19 cases, including two South African footballers and a member of the team’s staff. With four full days to go before the Olympic cauldron is lit in the near-empty 68,000-seat main stadium the virus is already testing claims by the International Olympic Committee chairman, Thomas Bach, that it will have “zero” influence on Games he has described as the “best prepared ever”. But having ignited an unsuccessful campaign to call the Games off, coronavirus is dominating the final countdown to Friday’s opening ceremony in the host city, where the heat and humidity are adding to the sense of cabin fever at the locked-down athletes’ village.
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