International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach is not only confident that the Tokyo Games will be happening in the summer of 2021, but also that people will be allowed to watch the games live in the venues they take place in. Bach expressed this sentiment Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
"Having seen now the different (event) tests in Japan I think we can become more and more confident that we will have a reasonable number of spectators then also in the Olympic venues," he said.
This newfound confidence comes on the heels of the news from Pfizer, which announced on Monday that its vaccine is showing promising results -- initial numbers were that it was 90 percent effective. What also apparently helped was Tokyo hosting an international gymnastics competition this past weekend that served as a test case for how to approach Olympic sports in the era of COVID.
Bach is so confident, in fact, that he gave a firm "no" when asked if a contingency for canceling the Olympics again in 2021 would even be discussed. But for all his confidence, the IOC boss still made sure to make space for the right words to be said about the potential vaccine.
"The first wave of vaccination ... must be for the people in need, for the high-risk groups, for the nurses, for the medical doctors and for everybody who is keeping our societies alive," Bach said.
