A member of the Japanese Olympic Committee's executive board has publicly broken ranks with the International Olympic Committee, telling a Japanese news outlet that she believes it is time to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Kaori Yamaguchi, a retired judo athlete, told Nikkei that she believes the IOC is "putting athletes at risk" by asking them to continue to train, as usual, in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — a message that president Thomas Bach and the IOC have communicated to athletes as recently as this week.
Yamaguchi, who is one of the committee's 23 executive board members, added that she plans to argue her stance to the rest of Japanese Olympic Committee in a March 27 meeting.