India House aims to elevate the performances of Indian athletes, support the national sports federations, and build the credentials of India as a global sporting nation, with an aspiration to host the Olympic Games in the future.
Plastic podiums, recycled medals, cardboard beds put focus on sustainability at Tokyo 2020.
Whether the beleaguered Tokyo Olympics begin as planned this July could come down to support from the United States and its new president, the Wall Street Journal quoted Tokyo Organising Committee member Haruyuki Takahashi as saying in an interview.
Nearly 80% of the Japanese public are now opposed to holding the Summer Games as scheduled this year, recent polls show.
The Tokyo organising committee plans to reserve an entire hotel located a few kilometres away from the athletes' village
The flame will be on show from Tuesday at the Japanese Olympic Museum, located next to the National Stadium purpose-built for the Games which were due to take place this year but were rescheduled for 2021 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The spread of a new coronavirus could throw "cold water over the growing momentum of the 2020 Games," Tokyo Organising Committee CEO Toshiro Muto said. Japanese government officials including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have said the government would work hard to minimise any impact from the virus outbreak on the Games, which start on July 24.
However, at his regular weekly news conference, Tokyo 2020 spokesman Masa Takaya said the reports were "optimistic" and that nothing had been announced.
The Indian athletes and officials travelling for the Olympics have been asked by the Japanese government to undergo daily COVID-19 tests for a week
Sponsors also worry that organisers have not told them what contingency plans there are in case the pandemic derails the Games again this year.
Qualifying boxing matches for Asia and Oceania for the 2020 Olympic Games have been cancelled due to fears over the new flu-like coronavirus
hashtag 'Mori, please resign' was trending on Twitter in Japan
Organisers said last December that the entire cost of holding the Games would come to about $15.4 billion, including $2.8 billion in costs for the unprecedented postponement from 2020. Since then, the projected bill for postponement has risen to $3 billion.
Plans that had been almost a decade in the making were shredded as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the IOC and Japanese government to take the unprecedented decision to postpone the Olympics for a year.
"To facilitate these adaptations, and reflecting the postponement of the Games, we are making the necessary modifications to the qualification system principles to include, for example, the relaxation of the maximum two-year period and amendments to the qualification deadlines."
Earlier, the advisory from the Tokyo Games organisers had said that athletes from Group 1 countries, including India, must be tested every day, for seven days, prior to departure to Japan.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Wednesday said it might freeze the world rankings for a while as it works on a "fair solution" to the Olympic qualification process after the coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement of the Tokyo Games to 2021. There have been growing calls to freeze the world rankings after cancellations and postponements wrecked the sport's calendar. Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal, B Sai Praneeth, Parupalli Kashyap and H S Prannoy have been leading the way in expressing concerns.
Major corporate sponsors of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are standing by the International Olympic Committee after the Games were postponed and experts familiar with the deals said the companies would not likely seek the return of billions of dollars committed to the agreements. Fourteen global companies including Coca-Cola Co, Procter & Gamble Co and Intel Corp spent $500 million this year and have committed close to $4 billion on multi-year contracts that designate them as top-tier sponsors, according to research firm Global Data.
Japan's top government spokesman said on Thursday that Tokyo's campaign to host the 2020 Olympics had been clean.
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