The Tokyo Olympics forbids social media from sharing images of teams taking the knee
The International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 organisers have banned their social media teams from posting pictures of athletes taking the knee at these Olympic Games, a report in The Guardian has revealed.
Sources within the Tokyo 2020 Olympics say that officials delivered the message with specific reference to Team GB’s women’s first football match against Chile on Wednesday. The image of both Team GB and the Chilean team taking the knee is said to have inspired the US, Swedish, and New Zealand teams to do the same. The Australian team chose to stand.
https://twitter.com/and_oberon/status/1418123940258631684
The Guardian continues to say that none of the photos or videos was posted to official channels, which has more than half a million followers.
“As players in Great Britain we’ve been taking the knee in club and international matches and we felt strongly as a group that we wanted to show support for those affected by discrimination and equality,” captain Steph Houghton told the Guardian.
“It was a proud moment because the Chile players took the knee too to show how united we are as sport.”
https://twitter.com/vince_rhodes/status/1418079281733849088
In other Olympics news, Toshiro Muto, head of the organising committee for the Tokyo Olympics, said there was still time to cancel the games if Covid cases made it impossible to proceed as planned.
“We can’t predict what will happen with the number of coronavirus cases. So we will continue discussions if there is a spike in cases,” Muto said.
“We have agreed that based on the coronavirus situation, we will convene five-party talks again. At this point, the coronavirus cases may rise or fall, so we will think about what we should do when the situation arises.”
