Olympic athletes will be subject to GPS monitoring

Olympic athletes will be subject to GPS monitoring as will members of the media.

Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee CEO Toshiro Muto said this on Wednesday.

Muto, speaking at a news conference, also said the monitoring system will be used not to track every single movement of the Olympic participants but to retroactively trace them if an issue arises.

The Japanese capital is set to host the once-postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics from July 23, amid concerns that the global event will burden a medical system already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.

Many Japanese and medical experts oppose staging the Games saying they could trigger a new wave of infections.

Some 80 percent of athletes qualified for the Olympics have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, but the International Olympic Committee is pushing to raise that number with just over a month to go before the start of the Games.