Members of the French swimming team on Tuesday became the first group of athletes to arrive in Japan for the Tokyo Paralympics since the games were postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The team of 13, including eight athletes, will have a pre-Paralympic training camp in the central city of Kanazawa, with officials confirming they have all tested negative for COVID-19 following their arrival at Narita airport near Tokyo.
Asked about the possibility of canceling the games due to surging COVID-19 cases in Tokyo, now under a state of emergency, Japan's Olympic minister Tamayo Marukawa told a press conference that the government wants to make sure that the Paralympics will go off without a hitch by cooperating well with other organizers.
The Paralympics are scheduled to take place between Aug. 24 and Sept. 5.
The organizers have banned spectators from almost all venues of the Olympics, which are running through Sunday, as part of measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
As for the Paralympics, in which as many as 4,400 athletes are expected to compete, the organizers have yet to decide whether the games will be held behind closed doors.
On Tuesday, Saitama Gov. Motohiro Ono said the torch relay segment of the Paralympics in the prefecture adjacent to Tokyo, slated for Aug. 19, will be pulled off of public roads due to the resurgence of COVID1-19 infections.
Many parts of the nationwide torch relay for the Olympics were also taken off public roads in the weeks leading up to the opening ceremony on July 23 due to the same reason.
