Six Afghan taekwondo athletes left Kabul on Tuesday for a training camp in Uzbekistan to prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games and other international events.

Four boys and two girls will participate in the 15-day training camp in Uzbekistan to prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games, said Bashir Taraki, coach of Afghanistan’s national taekwondo team.

“This training camp will be useful for the technical skill of the athletes, and the athletes of the country will train in this camp along with the top athletes of Asia,” said Taraki.

The Tokyo Olympic Games will be held in less than six months.

“We have prepared for the Tokyo Olympic Games,” said Samia Ghulami, a member of the national taekwondo team, adding that “we will bring honor to our country.”

The Tokyo Olympic Games was postponed in 2020 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Japanese mostly opposed to Tokyo Olympics

A majority of Japanese remain opposed to holding the Olympics this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic but the ratio lowered significantly from recent polls, a Yomiuri newspaper poll showed on Monday, Reuters reported.

Some 28% of respondents said they want the Olympics to be canceled, and the same ratio of people think they should be held without spectators, the poll showed.

The Yomiuri poll showed a combined 61% wanting the Games to be postponed or canceled altogether, around 20% points lower than recent opinion polls.

Just 36% of the public are in favor of holding the Tokyo Olympics this summer, of which 28% are calling for no spectators while the remaining 8% back allowing spectators.

The Tokyo Olympic Games were postponed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rescheduled to take place this year starting on July 23.

Some 56% expected the coronavirus pandemic to remain unchanged in the summer, while 37% anticipated improvement and 3% saw it getting worse. Some 70% believed the vaccination would help resolve the situation, outweighing those who saw no containment.