Tokyo 2020 can’t seem to catch a break.
As if a tenacious pandemic and Japan’s notorious humid summer heat weren’t enough for the Tokyo Olympics organizers to worry about, forecasts for an approaching typhoon are adding another layer of risk to the Games, which officially opened Friday.
Early on Saturday, Team U.S.A. sent out an alert that the rowing schedule was being adjusted because of an “inclement weather forecast.” Races originally scheduled for Monday have been moved to Sunday, and heats in the men’s and women’s eights, originally scheduled for Sunday, were moved to Saturday.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, a typhoon hit the Ogasawara Islands, an archipelago south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean, late Friday evening. Forecasts show that the storm, which was upgraded from a tropical cyclone to a typhoon as the opening ceremony was being staged at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, is slowly moving north and could hit the Tokyo region on Tuesday.
The rowing events take place at Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo Bay, not far from the center of the city.
At a news briefing on Saturday, Christophe Dubi, sports director for the International Olympic Committee, said that having the forecasting abilities of Japan’s meteorologists “is a very big plus.”
“So we’re fortunate to have this technology available” and that because of the advance warning, “we didn’t have to make the call on the day,” he said.
