Tokyo 2020: Beware of the false positive

by Liam Morgan, insidethegames
The long-awaited updates to the Tokyo 2020 “playbooks” are due to be published later this month.

When they were first unveiled in February, athletes could have been forgiven for wanting more detail and concrete information that had been promised by the likes of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

If organizers are to be believed, that much-needed clarification will come when the latest set of documents arrive on April 28. An area of interest will be testing, a key weapon in the armoury of any organisation hoping to stage major sports events – especially those Olympic in size – amid a global health crisis.

An incident at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Canada earlier this week highlighted how this particular area of testing, and the management of results, continues to pose a significant challenge – one which Tokyo 2020, the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee are acutely aware of but have not yet fully planned for.

This is the issue of false positives – people incorrectly told they have the virus – and how they are dealt with by the powers-that-be. – Full report