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Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien
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2021年5月18日

DIJ expertise on Tokyo Olympics in international media

Screenshot © Arirang TV

DIJ director Franz Waldenberger and deputy director Barbara Holthus have been quoted in several German and international media about recent developments regarding the Tokyo Olympics and their potential cancellation. In an interview with German radio DLF, Franz Waldenberger commented on the merits and demerits of a cancellation of the Games for Japanese companies. “If they have made advance payments, then they are now in a bad situation”, he explained. In a live interview with Korean TV Arirang’s News Center, Barbara Holthus argued that “the Games should not be held at this time, in the midst of a pandemic, at a time when really the whole world is suffering”. In the Daily Mail, she emphasized that holding the Games now was a “recipe for disaster” and that she was “very scared for the country and for the people of Japan”. For the German news agency SID and the news site Tagesschau, she explained the risks for Olympic volunteers and the general public. “There is a danger that the Games will become a superspreader event”, she commented. For more information on research related to the Olympics, see the DIJ’s special project on the Tokyo Olympics and the open access book publication Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics