First Lady Jill Biden to travel to Tokyo Olympics and lead US delegation

For the second time, Jill Biden will travel to the Olympics to lead the US delegation.

But for the Tokyo Games, she will do it without her husband, President Joe Biden. The couple led the delegation for the Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010, when Joe Biden was vice president.

The Tokyo Games, which will open on July 23 after a year of postponement, will no longer have fans in the stands following the state of emergency declared due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month that the president would not attend the Olympics but instead send an American delegation as is traditionally done.

President George W. Bush became the first US president to attend an Olympic Games abroad in 2008, when he visited China for the Beijing Games. It hasn’t happened since.

President Barack Obama did not attend the Games in Vancouver in 2010, in London in 2012, in Sochi in Russia in 2014 or in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Delegations were sent and at the London Games First Lady Michelle Obama led the delegation. In 2010, the Bidens led the US delegation to Canada.

President Donald Trump sent a delegation led by Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence to the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The first daughter Ivanka led the American delegation for the closing ceremony.