Uchibori said the move by Hokkaido on Friday encouraged him to follow suit. He said it was important to have consistency among prefectures.
A few other events being held in the outlying prefectures of Miyagi, Shizuoka and Ibaraki will go ahead with limited spectators, organizers said Saturday.
IOC President Thomas Bach probably didn’t notice, but on Saturday about 40 people staged a small anti-Olympic protest outside the five-star hotel where he is self-isolating after arriving in Tokyo on Thursday.
“He (Bach) seems not to have thought anything about our critical situation and suffering, which makes me more angry,” protester Ayako Yoshida said.
Polls have shown between 50-80% of Japanese oppose holding the Olympics, depending on how the question is phrased. But opponents have failed to martial large turnouts in the streets.
Protesters carried a sign in English that read “Cancel the Tokyo Olympics” and one that had a red line drawn through the face of Bach and was captioned: “You Are Not Welcome.”
Tokyo registered 950 new infections on Saturday, the 21st straight day that infections were higher than a week previous. It was the highest since 1,010 were reported on May 13.
Japan has attributed about 15,000 deaths to COVID-19 with 16.8% of the population fully vaccinated. The pandemic has not been as severe in Japan as other places, but the country has not performed as well as some of its Asian neighbors.
