Japanese athletes competing in this summer’s Tokyo Paralympics started receiving COVID-19 vaccine shots on Thursday.
Those who received shots Thursday included Junichi Kawai, president of the Japanese Paralympic Committee and chief of the Japanese delegation for the Tokyo Paralympics.
The training camp, which is being held at a facility in Tomi City, Nagano Prefecture, at an altitude of 1,750 meters, includes seven athletes who have been selected to represent Japan in the para-athletics class for intellectual disabilities.
While basic costs for dealing with the novel coronavirus are being subsidized by the government, additional measures required to ensure safe transportation and accommodation of disabled athletes are not.
“Sports venues are places where people with and without disabilities can come together and enjoy [an event],” Yukishita said. “I want the Games to be the catalyst to bring about change, so people with disabilities will feel more comfortable going out more often.”
The World Grand Prix, an international five-player soccer tournament for the visually impaired, opened at Tennozu Park in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo on May 30th, where the Japanese men’s team beat France 1-0. Japan’s team has qualified to participate in the Tokyo Paralympics.
“When I think about the feelings of athletes, I want the games to be held, but I also see difficulties,” said Takaaki Aoki, a 58-year-old specially appointed associate professor at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of Gifu University School of Medicine.
“…we need to bring back persons with disabilities to the center of the inclusion agenda. We want to change the behavior of society towards persons with disabilities at a global level,” he said. “We are very ambitious. We want the games to change the world.”
The Tokyo metropolitan government and others celebrated the 100-day countdown to the Aug. 24 opening of the Tokyo Paralympic Games on Sunday.
“We’ll make preparations to realize safe and secure games so that the event will be a light of hope,” Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said at a ceremony to mark the countdown.
Shigeyuki Miwa, 61, is a doctor at a hospital in the town of Tsuwano who administers vaccinations to local elderly people. His second daughter, Junko Hirose, a 30-year-old visually impaired judo athlete, is slated to represent Japan at the Tokyo Paralympics this summer. Miwa has inoculated some 2,400 people since late April, working even on the day before the relay.
Speaking to AFP, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president said stringent virus countermeasures will keep athletes and the Japanese public safe.
Barrier Free Japan