July 31, 2018

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on July 30 held a press conference and objected to the idea of introducing daylight-savings time as a countermeasure to tackle the extreme heat during the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo

Mori Yoshiro, the president of the organizing committee of the 2020 Summer Games, met with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo at the PM Office the other day and suggested that the government consider putting clocks forward one or two hours during the games in dealing with the heat.

Koike questioned this suggestion by saying, "Competitions will not only take place in the mornings. Daylight-savings time won't be a solution and will adversely affect people's daily lives."

He further said, "To move the games to September or to October will be a possible solution to avoid the heat," referring to the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics on October 10. He stated, "The games held in autumn will be an appropriate response to the call for 'Athlete First'."

Past related article:
> Nearly 10K people taken to hospital due to heatstroke within one week [July 22 & 23, 2018]