Everyone should be working on the basis that athletes and support staff will need to leave Japan straight after their competition or commitments finish. While hoping the world will be in a better place where that might not be necessary, it’s best that becomes our new base line.
To oversee the issues pre-Games and post-Games, the AOC has created a project team dedicated to working with sports to meet the many challenges athletes face in attending qualifying events, competing in events globally and attending pre-games training.
This “Project Wagasa” team is liaising with Federal Government agencies including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Border Force and Home Affairs – as well as state governments and bio-security experts.
“Wagasa” means umbrella in Japanese – so it’s an umbrella plan to cover all these challenges between now and the Games.
Sports will continue to have responsibility for preparing athletes in the pre-Games period, the liaison and advice from the Project Wagasa team will help negotiate the complexities each sport faces and provides a safety net to all that proper processes and protocols are in place to get you to the Games fit and healthy.
Project Wagasa has four phases:
- Qualifying events, test events and training
- Pre-Games training camps
- Assembling the Australian Olympic Team
- Returning Home
There are a number of decisions that can’t be made until next year given we don’t know what the world will look like, nor do we think we will be officially informed what countermeasures will be adopted by Tokyo 2020 towards the end of 2020 if not early 2021.
But there’s an enormous amount of work being done right now to deal with the current complications so many sports and athletes are facing.
We have done, and will continue to do, a lot of work to get a picture of where athletes need to be in the months ahead and what it takes to ensure we, with our member sports, can deliver, prepare and return the Team to the Tokyo Games.
We understand that many athletes and sports still need to qualify and we are working with National Federations and the Australian Government authorities to facilitate this.
What, if any, quarantine is required on returning to Australia, or any other country, will depend on Government requirements at that time.
