Olympics 2020 chief mixes up Japanese and Chinese at Tokyo Games presser

Thomas Bach’s attempts to win over the reluctant hosts of the Tokyo 2020 Games got off to an embarrassing start on Tuesday when the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) referred to the people of Japan as “Chinese”.

In his first public comments since arriving in Tokyo last week, Bach attempted to reassure the public that the Games would not become a coronavirus super-spreader event, The Guardian reports.

“Our common target is safe and secure Games,” he said at the start of a meeting with the head of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, and its chief executive, Toshiro Muto. “For everybody – for the athletes, for all the delegations, and most importantly also for the Chinese people … Japanese people.”

The gaffe was was not repeated by English-to-Japanese interpreters at the meeting, but reports by Japanese media triggered a backlash on social media.

Bach said the Games were the “best-ever prepared” despite the myriad logistical challenges posed by the pandemic.

“The Japanese people can have confidence in all the efforts we are undertaking to make these Games for them secure and safe, with all the intensive, most strict Covid-19 countermeasures,” he said.