EAG Giving Osaka Dim Hope for 2008 Olympics: Japanese ReporterA Japanese sport reporter lately released an article on Asashi News, commenting on Osaka's bad performance in East Asian Games (EAG) and advising it to relinquish its 2008 Olympic bid.May 25 saw the announcement of IOC Evaluation Report on the five candidate cities, in which, Osaka and Istanbul were put behind Paris, Toronto and Beijing. And the mayor of Osaka later expressed he would not easily give up. However, the said reporter addressed directly at the very beginning of the article titled "Osaka Shouldn't Be Reluctant in 2008 Olympic Bid" that her news hunting in Osaka gave her such a feeling. In her opinion, Osaka should seize on the East Asian Games to make a better impression instead of a series of troubles at the very beginning of EAG. There was merely English interpretation available on the Japanese side at the press conference after the opening ceremony of EAG and this had given sportsmen no small language difficulties from non-English speaking countries. It goes without saying it was the Organization Committee that should be to blame for wrongly giving Taiwan officials government ID card, which had caused the discontent of Chinese officials. Still more, other problems were also found due to sloppy organizational work on the part of the Organization Committee. As a matter of fact, Osaka's problems lay in its "financial difficulties" already indicated by IOC, and EAG provides good evidence of this, quoted the reporter as saying. By PD Online staff member Yin Zhili |
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